Another chance for those of you who wanted to go to the September 20
E2/NRDC event. The scheduling of the program at the Sacramento Air
Resources Board hearing will determine if I or someone else will be presenting.

GreenMountain Engineering presents
A speaker series in cleantech entrepreneurship

Clean Technology Innovation: Green My Ride

It has been nearly impossible to miss the emerging emphasis on
"greener" transportation recently.  Higher prices at the gas pump and
a proliferation of hybrids have finally put the spotlight on
alternative technologies.  However, the automotive industry has a
long-standing reputation for being averse to change.  Can Silicon
Valley upstarts really expect to take on Detroit?  Which emerging
technologies have the most potential to impact the transportation
industry and where are the biggest opportunities for
entrepreneurs?  Panelists will explore these and other questions at
GreenMountain's second Clean Technology Innovation event of 2006.

Panelists will include:
High-Performance Electric Vehicles: Tesla Motors
JB Straubel, CTO

Advanced Batteries: Nanoexa
Michael Pak, Co-Founder and CEO

Plug-In Hybrids: CalCars
Felix Kramer, Founder and John Davi, Director of Communications

Moderated by Jon Guice, PhD, GreenMountain Engineering

Tuesday September 26, 2006
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Stanford University, Wallenberg Hall, Wallenberg Learning Theater
$15 with advance registration, $25 at the door (space not guaranteed)
Refreshments and opportunities to network will be provided.
Open to the general public. Seating is limited. We recommend
registering as soon as possible.

Register at
https://www.123signup.com/servlet/SignUpMember?PG=1529950182300&P=15299501911542\
81900

For more information please visit www.GreenMountainEngineering.com/news_03.htm
or e-mail Events@...


--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
               http://www.bettah.org
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

Pacific Gas and Electricc announced at the launch event for Plug-in
Bay Area that they'd be urging all their customers to sign the
Plug-In Partners petition. <http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/487.html>
Now here's the press release:
<http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-01-20\
06/0004425488&EDATE=>

PG&E to Harness People Power to Help Bring Plug-In Hybrids to the Public

PG&E Invites its 5.1 Million Customers to Join the Plug-In
Partnership - a National, Grassroots Initiative to Show Automakers
that there are Buyers for Plug-In Hybrids

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Imagine pulling your
car into the garage in the evening, plugging it into a 120-volt standard
electric socket, and in the morning it's ready to take you to work or to do
errands without using a drop of gasoline.

It sounds futuristic, but the technology is here today. It's called a
flexible-fuel Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV), or simply, a Plug-In.
Besides saving you money at the gasoline pump, Plug-Ins will dramatically
decrease American dependence on imported oil, reduce greenhouse gases and
other air pollutants.

"Although Pacific Gas and Electric Company is using PHEV prototypes in
its operation today, consumers can't go to the local auto dealer to get one
because automakers aren't convinced there are enough buyers," said Bob
Howard, PG&E vice president of gas transmission and distribution. "That's
why PG&E is hoping to harness the power of its 5.1 million customers by
sending an invitation in September bills encouraging our customers to
simply sign the online petition asking automakers to make Plug-in Hybrids.
The petition basically says, 'If you build it, we will buy it.'"

Over 40 percent of the generating capacity in the U.S. sits idle or
operates at a reduced load overnight, when most PHEVs would be charged.
That means tens of millions of plug-ins could be charged every night
without the need to build additional electric generation capacity.

PG&E currently operates the 4th cleanest/largest low emission vehicle
fleet in the country. As an official Plug-In Partner, the company has
already pledged to automakers that the company will buy PHEVs to make its
vehicle fleet even cleaner.

According to the California Electric Transportation Coalition that
commissioned a study, if automakers begin producing Plug-Ins within the
next few years, 2.5 million cars (eight percent of the cars on the road)
could be Plug-Ins by the year 2020. That's the equivalent of taking as many
as 5 million of today's vehicles off the road. Annually, which means that
11.5 million tons of CO2 emissions won't contribute to global warming and
1.14 Billion gallons of gasoline would be saved each year.

"Our customers have the power to help make Plug-Ins for the public a
reality by simply saying they would consider buying one," said Howard. "We
hope they will join us and become a Plug-In Partner."

Becoming a Plug-In Partner is easy to do. Just go to
http://www.pluginpartners.org and simply sign the online petition asking
automakers to make Plug-in Hybrids.

For more information about Pacific Gas and Electric Company's
commitment to the environment, please visit our website at http://www.pge.com


--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
               http://www.bettah.org
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

Just as we thought we Toyota's slogan "moving forward," applied to
plug-in hybrids, they've again pushed back the date. We hoped for
model year 2009; then it looked like 2010 or 2011. (See our
chronologies at <http://www.calcars.org/carmakers.html>. Now a Toyota
spokesperson tells Reuters that "affordable plug-in hybrids are a
decade away."  (Full article below.)

What is the context for this statement? A Reuters reporter asked for
a comment about Pacific Gas & Electric's announcement that it was
taking the unprecedented step of urging its 5.1 million customers to
ask car-makers to build PHEVs
<http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/calcars-news/message/507>.
Here's the larger context for the company: The front page of Friday's
New York Times Business Section, in an article on the just-passed AB
32, The California Global WarmingSolutions Act of 2006, "California
Plan to Cut Gases Splits Industry,
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/01/business/01energy.html>, says, "As
a result of his [CEO Peter Darbee's} wide inquiries, PG&E, the parent
of Pacific Gas and Electric Company and one of the nation's largest
energy utilities, broke away from the industry pack to support
sweeping efforts to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are
widely blamed for global warming."

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the "big 3" don't see hybrids EVER as
the winning alternative. For another view, this long weekend, you
could spend an entertaining few hours getting the provocative
perspective of a heavy-hitter in the investment world. Read the
eye-opening Alliance Bernstein report, "The Emergence of Hybrid
Vehicles"
<http://www.calcars.org/alliance-bernstein-hybrids-june06.pdf>,
which predicts hybrids will take a 50% share of new-car sales by 2015
and will make up 85% of new vehicle sales and 72% of the installed
base by 2030 (page 34). If you just want the summary, see the 6-pager
at
<http://www.alliancebernstein.com/investments/us/StoryPage.aspx?nid=5347&cid=377\
55>.

Carmakers asked to hurry up on plug-in hybrids
Reuters, Friday, September 1, 2006; 10:19 PM
By Bernie Woodall
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/01/AR2006090101696\
.html>

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is asking its 5.1
million customers to petition automakers to speed up development of
plug-in electric-gasoline hybrid vehicles, California's largest
utility said on Friday.

Along with their power and gas bills for September, PG&E customers
will get a request to lobby the automakers.

PG&E and its parent, PG&E Corp., have joined with an Austin,
Texas-based organization called "Plug-In Partners" that has set up an
Internet petition drive to pressure U.S. and foreign automakers to
make cars that can charge up by plugging in to a regular 120-volt
household outlet.

"The petition basically says, 'If you build it, we will buy it,"'
said PG&E vice president Bob Howard.

For their part, the automakers say plug-in hybrids are not ready for
the showroom floor.

The leading hybrid seller in North America is Toyota Motor Corp.,
which including August U.S. sales figures issued on Friday is on pace
to sell 198,000 hybrids in 2006, up from 145,560 in 2005.

In June, Toyota said "hybrids will be the core technology of the 21st century."

Hybrids on the road use electricity generated by the gasoline-fueled
engine. But affordable plug-in hybrids are a decade away, Toyota
spokesman Bill Kwong said on Friday.

If that is so, said PG&E spokeswoman Jann Taber, the petition drive
and other efforts to pressure automakers could speed up the process
of development to mass production.

"Automakers aren't convinced there are enough buyers," PG&E's Howard
said. "That's why PG&E is hoping to harness the power of its 5.1
million customers."

The three major U.S. automakers, General Motors Corp. Ford Motor Co.
and DaimlerChrysler AG, do not see hybrids as the winning alternative
to gasoline-fueled vehicles.

GM is in the early stages of plug-in hybrid development and has not
committed to any production, spokesman Dave Barthmuss said.

Hydrogen fuel cells are the alternative of the future, but plug-in
hybrids are likely to be among several alternatives that will serve
as a bridge until the time hydrogen fuel cells are affordable and
practical, Barthmuss said.

At a hydrogen fuel conference earlier this year, automakers and
developers of the technology said hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would
not be commonplace until about 2020.

PG&E's manager of clean air transportation, Brian Stokes, said he has
asked to meet with U.S., Japanese, South Korean, and Japanese
automakers, and only one company has agreed to meet with him so far.

PG&E on Friday cited a study by the California Electric
Transportation Coalition that says if automakers produce plug-in
hybrids within a few years, 2.5 million of them would be on the road by 2020.

PG&E's Taber said it was a coincidence that the plea to petition
automakers occurred the same week that California passed landmark
legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The petition states: "If I could buy a vehicle that was cheaper to
operate, cleaner, ran on domestic electricity, and I could buy it
from you for a few thousand dollars more, yes I would positively WANT
to plug it in to a 120-volt outlet."

Utilities like PG&E will not benefit from any increase in power use
by its customers, said Taber of PG&E. Their rates are regulated by
state agencies and they do not make more profit if they sell more
electricity, Taber said.

PG&E officials say that if plug-in hybrids do become common, they
will urge customers to plug in at night when the power grid is not as
strained as it is during daylight hours.

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
               http://www.bettah.org
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

Now that PG&E has taken delivery of an EnergyCS
converted Prius, with CalCars' two vehicles and
one at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District,
there are 4 demo PHEVs in Northern California. That helps the "buzz."

PG&E spokespeople keep making clear that
utilities don't make money selling more
power....but that's not what everyone thinks.
(How often do you hear, "the oil companies are
just interested in selling gasoline?") And who
better than a Toyota spokesperson should know
that the PHEV Prius's batteries have nothing to do with rear seat space.

PG&E plugs in to hybrid movement
During a Valley stop, utility urges car
manufacturers and consumers to consider a vehicle that fills up at a socket.

By Robert Rodriguez and Bethany Clough / The Fresno Bee Business Section
(Updated Saturday, September 2, 2006, 5:19 AM)
http://www.fresnobee.com/business/story/12667379p-13367658c.html

CAPTION: Brian Stokes, a Pacific Gas & Electric
Co. clean air manager, demonstrates Friday in
Clovis a Toyota Prius that has been turned into a
plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.

Brian Stokes drove his new car into a Clovis
garage Friday, pulled out an electrical cord and
filled up — with electricity, that is.

Stokes, a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. clean air
manager, was in the central San Joaquin Valley
demonstrating one of the newest energy-efficient
vehicles, a plug-in hybrid electric.

The car, a Toyota Prius, has been retrofitted to
accommodate rechargeable batteries that double
the car's gas mileage, up to 100 miles per
gallon. Plugging into a standard 120-volt
electric socket overnight is all that is needed
to recharge the additional batteries.

Supporters of the new technology say that plug-in
hybrids have enough battery life to power the
vehicle from 20 to 60 miles on a single battery
charge. And considering that half the cars on
American roads are driven 25 miles a day or less,
a plug-in would eliminate gasoline for millions
of cars, according to Plug-In Partners, a
national organization created to encourage
automakers to produce the plug-in hybrids.

One of those partners is PG&E.

Stokes' vehicle is driven across the state to
demonstrate the technology and promote plug-in hybrids.

Millions of PG&E customers will soon be receiving
information about the new cars and how they can
urge the auto industry to produce them.

"Toyota is doing their market research," Stokes
said. "They are doing their due diligence. But
this is not a stretch to make this happen."

A Toyota spokesman agreed that the company is
studying the technology, but said it may be
several years away from rolling out a plug-in hybrid.

There are several issues that prevent the
conversion kits from being practical, including
the space the extra batteries take up in the
trunk and back seat and the additional $10,000 to
$15,000 cost, said Bill Kwong, spokesman at Toyota Motor Sales USA in Torrance.

The base price of a regular Prius is $22,000.

With California already having energy supply
issues, thousands of hybrids hooking up to the
grid would be a huge issue, Kwong said.

For those reasons, Toyota won't sell a plug-in
hybrid any time soon, though he didn't rule out
the automaker adopting the technology, he said.

"It does make sense," he said. But "it's probably
a good eight to 10 years away."

PG&E spokesman Jeff Smith said added energy consumption is not a problem.

"That is not a concern of ours," Smith said. "An
overwhelming majority of users would be charging
at night when the cost is less, and it would not be during peak hours."

Auto companies marketing the cars would create a
demand for them in much the same way Toyota's and
Honda's support of traditional hybrids did, said
Jack Nerad, executive market analyst at Kelley Blue Book.

"I think there's a chance that it would reach a
much greater degree of popularity than it has now
if some manufacturers would get behind it," he
said. "That's what it's going to take."

The car would be more marketable, particularly
for commuters, if its batteries last longer, he said.

However, the car is better designed than older
electric-only plug-in cars that failed to achieve
popularity because they didn't have gas as backup.

Smith said PG&E is supporting the effort because
it believes in energy efficiency and protecting the environment.

"We think it is very important to be
environmentally conscious," Smith said. "Our
customer base is environmentally conscious, and
we need to be in tune with their needs. They expect it and demand it."

But Nerad said more than just environmentalism is driving PG&E's efforts.

"I think there's some public relations benefits
to pushing the technology," he said.

"This is an entity that sells electricity, so it
has an intrinsic interest in pushing electric products."

The reporter can be reached at brodriguez@... or (559) 441-6327.

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
               http://www.bettah.org
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

In June 2005, Silicon Valley venture capitol reporter Matt Marshall
wrote an article for his paper, the San Jose Mercury News and his
blog, SiliconBeat, "Cars that run on overnight charge catch valley
VC's eye." He revealed our idea for a "qualified vehicle modifier"
partnership with automakers. Soon thereafter we had six months of
discussions with Ford about that approach, which we disclosed in May.

Now we're at the next stage. We're concluding that our goals can best
be achieved through a for-profit company.

Meanwhile, Matt Marshall has moved on. Last week, SiliconBeat became
"VentureBeat" and we were invited to post. In one of its inaugural
blogs, we just announced our plans. A text-only version, without
hyperlinks, is below. You can if you choose post a comment at
VentureBeat <http://www.venturebeat.com/contributors/?p=11>, where
the entrepreneurs hang out, or at our Power, Plugs and People blog
<http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power/new-company-for-phevs>, where
clean car enthusiasts gather.

And if you're in the Bay Area, looking for the GreenTech opportunity
into which to pour all your business/technical experience (and
ideally, some automotive background) to help us go from concepts to a
business, accumulating valuable intellectual property and
accelerating the commercialization of PHEVs -- or if you're a
potential six-figure investor -- please contact us by email.

Just before we get to the blog, a P.S.:
Marshall also just picked up on our story about the VC and
entrepreneur trip to Sacramento that helped set the stage for passage
of the AB 32 legislation on global warming -- see his post at
<http://venturebeat.com/?p=1789> and our report at
<http://www.calcars.org/globalwarming.html>. (The latter also has the
correct URL for our blog where you can comment on that story.)


Plug-In Hybrid Cars Enter the Fast Lane -- We Hope

In 2002, I founded CalCars as a company to advance cars that get over
100 MPG of gasoline. They're called "plug-in hybrids" (PHEVs),
because you can just plug in to 120 volts at home.. Electric for
commuting, gasoline-fueled for longer drives, they're a quantum step
beyond today's hybrids.

It took us four years to make largely unknown PHEVs a recognized path
for automotive development. We built awareness and enthusiasm. Our
open-source-style PRIUS+ conversions proved what's possible.

Along the way we morphed into a dot-org -- a "non-profit startup." We
became PHEV evangelists and helped catalyze a national movement. In a
great cross-country policy stunt, our prototypes showed up at the
U.S. Capitol.

Our timing has been on target. PHEVs respond to three national
preoccupations: skyrocketing fuel prices, global warming and
addiction to oil. When people hear about "cleaner, cheaper, domestic"
PHEVs, the lightbulb goes on.

So why have car-makers remained reluctant to embrace our technology,
and try to make a bundle off it? They're reactive, work in long
product cycles. and don't believe people will pay more up-front. And
they can't see beyond resolveable technical concerns, especially on
batteries.

How can we go further? Wise voices have long urged us to start a
company. "Change the auto industry by proving your solution can make
money." It helps to have people like top VC John Doerr tell us,
"Plug-in hybrids are a really big deal. They are practical,
profitable and urgently needed."

So now we want to launch an ambitious for-profit. We're talking with
other leading PHEV innovators about combining talents and acquiring
funding to operate in the high-stakes world. We're hatching plans to
rapidly deliver PHEV conversions to fleets and individuals; work on
original designs; license our intellectual property; and keep innovating.

We'll make customers and partners out of car-makers, suppliers and
integrators. Ford, GM and others could get a boost from PHEVs, as
could emerging Chinese entrants. (Toyota could do it now, but may
wait until 2010.)

Meanwhile, as an industry in a tailspin drags its heels on
innovation, PHEV engineers continue to patent answers to technical
challenges that car-makers haven't yet encountered.

Washington is deciding how to make the President's words come true
when he says, "You've got your car, you pull in, you plug it right in
the wall." (Like I do every night.) And a half-dozen states are about
to put tens of millions into PHEV programs.

PHEVs help GreenTech become the next big thing. The Environmental
Entrepreneurs (E2) organization is getting involved. VC partners have
driven our cars and talked about them as examples of innnovation.

We've started evaluating potential partners and markets. We're
talking with angels and VCs about borrowing an entrepreneur-in
residence, helping to recruit auto industry veterans and getting seed
funding. We try to involve people who've already made their fortunes
and are looking to build useful profitable companies. We invoke the
spirit of Steve Jobs' recruitment pitch, "Do you want to sell sugar
water for the rest of your life -- or do you want to change the world?"

We're teeing up opportunities. Progress can be frustrating and
difficult -- like any startup. But we're having the most fun of our lives!

I'm the world's first consumer owner of a PHEV. Wherever I park,
people say, "I want one. I'll pay almost anything. Can I get one?" I
answer, "Not yet," then, "How about a tax-deductible contribution or
a seed investment so we can make it all happen?"

The for-profit company I want to build will have a better answer: "Yes."

                #    #   #

Felix Kramer, founder of The California Cars Initiative, is a
communications, marketing, business development and strategy
executive who builds ambitious, unique and "first-ever" projects.
He's made a successful career of promoting innovative ideas, events,
products and services relating to energy and technology. He's been a
Congressional speechwriter, a journalist, run a fee-for-service
energy conservation nonprofit, was an early desktop publisher and
wrote the first book on the business of desktop publishing. He became
one of the first online marketers in 1994. In 1997, he moved to the
Bay Area, secured angel financing, assembled an international staff
and built the world's largest searchable directory of web builders.
In 2001, he sold eConstructors.com and became involved with Hypercar,
Inc., founded by Amory Lovins. Then a change in focus to immediate
solutions led to the 2002 CalCars. A graduate of Cornell University,
he lives in Silicon Vallley, and blogs at HybridCars.com.

(Again, to comment on this, please see paragraph 2 above.)

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
               http://www.bettah.org
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

We're getting encouragement and reaction from
many sources. At our own blog
<http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power/new-company-for-phevs>
are some very thoughtful responses; my favorite
was this one from George Kalkas:
       Once you drive a PHEV it’s very hard to go
back. Felix was kind enough to let me drive his
car in Palo Alto. There were 5 adults in the car
and, granted, I was driving around at
neighborhood speeds, but the car never used the gas engine!
       Upon returning home, I promptly visited my
Toyota Salesman, and told him that the next car
we buy WILL BE a PHEV. In fact, I can’t see ever
buying a non-PHEV. I might as well drop my
broadband and go back to a dial-up modem.
       By the way almost everyone I talk to about
this technology, asks, “when can I buy one?”.

Below we've included most of the comments
(including both kudos and potshots) at GreenCar
Congress (plus my clarifications) and at
VentureBeat, then the Editor's weekly column in EVWorld.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/09/calcars_to_beco.html#comment-22059907
CalCars to Become For-Profit PHEV Company
5 September 2006 Green Car Congresss

       CalCars, the non-profit founded in 2002 to
advance the development of plug-in hybrids
(PHEVs), has decided to convert to a for-profit
company that actually builds commercial products.
       As envisioned, the new company will deliver
PHEV conversions to fleets and individuals; work
on original designs; and license its intellectual property.
       CalCars founder Felix Kramer laid out the
basics in a post on VentureBeat. <snip>
September 5, 2006 in Hybrids, Plug-ins | Permalink | Comments (14)

       And as soon as Toyota intoduces PHEV as an
option, these people are history.
--Posted by: t | Sep 5, 2006 1:03:42 PM

       I've still yet to read of any non-employee
being able to get their products to work right in
the first place. I've read two separate stories
in the past of journalists getting to drive their
demonstrator car(s) and having glitches with it
preventing them from getting the full advertised
benefits of PHEV functionality. Agreed that if
the 2008 Prius is plug-in, that will mean not
only lower cost than aftermarket but also less
buggy. Nothing kills a product like the
frustration of having it not work right.
--Posted by: Sid Hoffman | Sep 5, 2006 1:32:56 PM

       If they cause Toyota to make PHEV soon
rather than later they will have accomplished there goal.
       I don't think toyota will come out with
PHEV for another 5 years so they could definetly
make a little money. I say good luck. Hope it
works out! A more competitive market place breeds
more innovation so maybe this will jump start EnergyCS and Hymotion.
--Posted by: paul | Sep 5, 2006 2:44:29 PM

       Good luck to them. Will they be writing
battery warranties ? I would watch the small
print. I genuinely hope they succeed as what they
are doing is a "good thing" but they may be too soon (battery-wise).
       On the other hand, if they have any
substantial IP, they could make a few quid.
--Posted by: mahonj | Sep 5, 2006 2:52:47 PM

        In my opinion, Cal Cars should be
receiving nothing but praise on this board. And
to be honest, the constant critiques on here have
become more than tired. I have no experience with
their product, and cannot comment on whether or
not their test projects worked. However, they
have worked very hard on this concept for years,
long before people were so concerned about peak
oil, energy security, global warming and a host
of other ssues that bring people to this site.
They recognized a problem few were discussing, and did something about it.
       Is it perfect? I have no idea.
       But I give them a tremendous amount of
credit for pushing forward, putting the hat on
larger corporations, and ultimately doing something that will benefit us all.
       Best of luck Cal Cars.
--Posted by: Sam | Sep 5, 2006 2:59:33 PM

       Regardless on their long term sucess,
CalCar deserves a full hand for pushing the
majors towards PHEVs (sooner) and give high
performance batteries/storage devices a market for their products.
       Others like EnergyCS + Hymotion + Power
Companies should joint CalCar to bring more models on the market.
       Car bodies could be from existing compatible street legal units.
--Posted by: Harvey D. | Sep 5, 2006 3:50:02 PM

       The noble car company in the U.K. uses
lotus chasis for their cars. Reviewers have
praised Noble cars for years. It seems that
Harvey D. has a good idea. If this company
focuses on what it does well and leaves the other
things to other people then they stand a chance.
People want what they can offer.
--Posted by: Andy | Sep 5, 2006 10:43:54 PM

       Don't forget there are already over half a
million Prius out there that could be converted.
There will probably be a million by the time
Toyota has something to offer. Converting a million cars is Big!
--Posted by: Kip | Sep 5, 2006 11:22:16 PM

       Hi t,
       not at all. There are scores of ICE
vehicles to be converted with for example in wheel solutions.
--Posted by: German | Sep 6, 2006 2:23:00 AM

       What will happen to the many people who
donated lots of money as gifts to Calcars when it
was non-profit research group?
       They can only do what they're planning now
because of that early investment.
       Will the early supporters receive anything
in return (ie shares in the entity they enabled)?
--Posted by: clett | Sep 6, 2006 3:01:09 AM

       If they can introduce an affordable car
available in all fifty states, with decent range,
available financing and a decent warranty,
meeting all the current safety/crash standards,
and comforts, I will be interested. I do not see
how they can leapfrog over all the major automakers of this world to do so.
       If they do not deliver such to the masses,
then I see them catering to the Jay Lenos and
George Clooneys of this market. I am in a wait
and see mode. Either way I want them to succeed,
as we need all great ideas out there to spur innovation.
--Posted by: Mark A | Sep 6, 2006 7:17:56 AM

       Before Felix turned his personal energies
toward promoting the plug in hybrid, almost no
one had considered the concept. Only a few years
later and the press and politicians have grasped
the subject and are able to speak about it
intelligently. Even George Scholz, of all people,
was seen articulating the advantages of plug in
hybrids on national television. It's not a hard
concept to fathom. But without Felix relentlessly
getting the words "plug-in hybrid" in front of
anyone and everyone, very few would have a clue
what the plug in hybrid is or why it is significant.
       The popularization of the concept and the
advantages of the plug in hybrid are due to Felix
and Ron and all the others who got behind
CalCars. This is simply an amazing accomplishment
no matter how one looks at it. Possibly it took
off as well as it has because of it's simplicity
and appeal to many and because it's timing was
spot on. But it's also safe to say that the
plug-in hybrid would not have spontaneously shown
up on the lips of people like George Scholz
without the continuous push and education from CalCars.
       It's probably true that if Ford and Toyota
come out with plug-in hybrids next year, CalCars
is finished. But if big auto does produce
plug-ins, celebrations are in order, and CalCars
deserves most of the credit. Considering the fact
that big auto spends the majority of its energies
pooh-poohing ideas like plug-in hybrids and
diligently crushing every last EV they ever
leased, CalCars probably has plenty of work and business ahead of itself.
       Electricity may be the transportation fuel
of the future, but we don't have the luxury of
waiting decades for big auto to evolve of their
own volition. The days when there were hundreds
of competing automobile Manufacturers were over
long ago. The few that remain suffer from extreme
homeostasis and seem to like it that way. Big
auto apparently needs a lot more companies like
CalCars biting at their heels before they will
reluctantly take their first steps in the right directions.
--Posted by: Lee Dekker | Sep 6, 2006 7:39:45 AM

       Thanks for the gracious supportive
comments. We feel tremendously satisfied at our
success in helping to put PHEVs on the map and
cars on the road since 2002. Many people write us
saying we give them a spark of hope about the
possibilities for change, and about doing
something about global warming. And we are
grateful for all parallel efforts of so many
individuals and organizations, especially those
listed at calcars.org/partners.html .
       Here are a few clarifications (especially
for people who have read only the summary and not
the original posting -- see link above to
VentureBeat.com or go to Hybridcars.com/blogs/power/).
* Non-profit CalCars is not hoping to "become" a
for-profit company, but rather to sponsor or spin
off one. That's quite different, and there are
many scenarios in which we imagine CalCars.org
continuing in its advocacy role, if not in technology development.
* We're expecting to work with one or more
existing after-market conversion companies. And
we have no interest in ourselves becoming a car
company. We intend to work with and license
intellectual property to existing car-makers.
* The 3 PHEVs CalCars has built all work
reliably. All three remain development platforms
and therefore works-in-progress; some are at
times in a state of redesign. EnergyCS has built
10; I have put 8,000 easy miles on one of them
since April. And I understand Hymotion has begun
to ship cars to customers as well.
* Once car-makers begin building PHEVs, there's
plenty of room for a smart and capable team to
cotinue to demonstrate innovation on
light-weighting, optimization, telematics and
many other advanced technologies, as well as
after-market conversions of existing hybrids.
* We are grateful for the hundreds of small
contributions and the small number of larger
donations. I've personally more than matched the
total of ALL the small donors in unreimbursed
travel and other expenses. The 3 full-time people
at CalCars have been paid for less than a year --
before that, we were all volunteers (I since late
2001). We continue to urgently need that support
to continue what we're doing and fund a half-dozen great stacked-up projects.
* We're now concentrating on finding high-wealth
six-figure investors, but it may be that we'll
also find a way to involve supporters with
smaller investment resources who want to be involved.
       Thanks again for all your support!
Felix Kramer, Founder, The California Cars Initiative--
Posted by: Felix Kramer | Sep 6, 2006 6:50:46 PM

       I can personally verify that the CalCars
PHEV works as advertised. While I was visiting
Palo Alto, Felix was kind enough to allow me to
drive the 100+ mpg plug-in. There were 4 other
adults in the car. Granted, we drove at
neighborhood speeds, but the car never left
electric mode! By the way, after driving a PHEV, it’s very hard to go back.
       Upon returning home, I promptly visited my
Toyota Salesman, and told him that the next car
we buy WILL BE a PHEV (after which, I explained
what a plug-in was). In fact, now, I can’t see
ever buying a non-PHEV. I might as well drop my
broadband and go back to a dial-up modem.
       I, for one, wish CalCars the very best. As
some of you have already stated in different
ways, plug-ins would be no where if it weren’t
for Felix Kramer. And if Toyota drags it’s feet
for too long, I would hope to be a CalCars customer.
--Posted by: George | Sep 6, 2006 7:03:36 PM

http://www.venturebeat.com/contributors/?p=11
VentureBeat Community
8 comments on this story
VentureBeat » Silicon Valley leaders prove clout
on global warming bill   09.4.06 | 9:13 pm

       […] California Assembly Member Pavley,
co-author of AB 32, apparently told the group,
which also included Amy Christiansen, of Google
and Felix Kramer of CalCars (see his VentureBeat
“contributor” column today), that their press
conference a few weeks ago had helped tipped the
scales. By arguing the legislation will help
California’s economy, the group (pictured above)
produced media coverage depicting California’s
business community as divided on the
legislation’s economic benefits — and thus,
making it more than simply a battle between
business and environmentalists. The Environmental
Entrepreneurs group, based here in San Francisco,
held a total of 124 individual meetings with
members of the legislature, plus multiple other
meetings — not to mention organizing letter and phone campaigns. […]
--Robert Unanski   09.5.06 | 3:33 pm

       What a wonderful idea. I have watched the
entire worldwide Automobile industry ignore,
disparage and stonewall the concept of building
and selling PHEV’s. Once again, California has an
opportunity to lead the United States and the
world by providing a product that existing car
makers can’t or won’t build. I told Bill Ford
that I would purchase the first PHEV he would
build. I guess I can make that same promise to Felix.
--Richard Cole   09.5.06 | 4:41 pm

       Almost two years ago, I bought a Ford
Escape hybrid SUV, and as a very early member of
Calcars, met with Ron Gremban and even visited
Ford HQ in Dearborn (at my own expense and their
invitation) to hear Ford’s view of how to
maximize mileage (little more than common sense
tips). As an attorney (including over twenty
years with one of the “big firms”), I have
offered my services to Felix and others within
Calcars to assist the development of PHEV kits
and culture. In addition to awaiting the
realistic ability to modify my own hybrid, I repeat that offer. Richard Cole
--Farris Lyons   09.5.06 | 7:09 pm

       I am not loaded but i would like to build
one of these vehicles. I don’t understand why a 1
KW generator made from a lawn mower engine cant
be incorporated to keep the batteries charged.
also why photo voltaic cells can’t be added to
save even more. I live in Florida and MUST have
and a/c for the 8 muggy months and a heater /
defroster for the 3 frosty months. These Items
are available off the shelf, they just need a
common sense entrepreneur to put the kit
together. Think fast, America needs a common sense leader NOW.
--Jim Baber   09.5.06 | 8:09 pm

       I have wanted to pursue this concept since
I have first seen the Prius introduction. The
synergy drive concept from Toyota (and as
licensed by Ford) is the easiest hybrid to modify
into a PHEV vehicle. This hybridization concept
is equally applicable to all forms of internal
combustion engines not just gasoline engines, so
this will allow it to be used with the Bio-Diesel powerplants as well.
       This is very important because it could
eliminate the use of all petroleum except for
lubricants and yet it will not use as much of the
worlds food stock grains as pure bio-diesel
engines would. It would not be quite as sensitive
to crop failures allowing a more comfortable
dependancy on agriculture for fuels as well as food.
       The power companies claim that they can
support the power usage because it would
primarily be a nighttime load and would in fact
allow them to make better use of their primary power sources.
       Some governmental agencies are concerned
about the loss of their per gallon taxes, but
that can be managed with a ton mile annual /
monthly registration fee, that would in fact be a
fairer way to tax for the maintenance of the
highways on those who are the heaviest users.
       The only ones who will suffer from these
changes would be the oil companies, and even they
recognize and are making alternative plans today
for the eventual loss of their petroleum revenues.
--David Docter   09.6.06 | 1:37 am

       While I am not a six-figure investor, I
would buy stock in this venture. As a Prius owner
and subscriber to your newsletters, I have been
passionate about your PHEV work. I visited Andy
Frank in Davis a year and a half ago. Every day I
observe the blindness of the American public to
his and your work, and I recognise the uphill
struggle of your ideals. But this has to be done.
Please keep the faith and explore this idea to
fruition. I know that it will take big bucks.
--Attila FaSzegyy   09.6.06 | 10:58 pm

       This is the first time I heard that you
guys are involved in the development of PHEV. My
compliments. As soon as IPO is issued I will buy
several thousands of shares. Cost of those
probably will suck up a significant portion of my
investment capital but, what the heck, I am much
closer to the grave than the cradle and none of
us can take it with us. Let us enrich our and
next generation’s future whatever way we can.
       Please keep me posted.
Best Regards, Attila


http://www.evworld.com/general.cfm?section=directory&page=insider
EV World Insider Perspective
by Editor Bill Moore

PHEV Entrepreneurs Bloom
       Which, of course, opens a Pacific
Coast-sized bay window of opportunity for companies like PML and CalCars.
       UK-based PML just revealed its 200
miles-plus electric-only range plug-in hybrid
Mini Cooper; and this baby has it all. Advanced
lithium batteries, ultracapacitors, and electric
wheel motors. Instead of the 100 hp of the
original Mini, this car packs a total of 640 hp
(4x160hp). There's a small "boot"-mounted IC
engine that gives the car a total range of nearly
1500 km (930+ miles). Top speed is 150 mph and 0-60 is 4.5 seconds.
       Smokin!
       I am going to try to get these folks on the
telephone this week to learn more about their technology and sales plans.
       Out on the America "left-coast", one of the
leading advocacy groups for plug-in hybrids,
California Cars Initiative or CalCars is
beginning to evolve beyond its grassroots,
not-for-profit activist niche into a
for-real-profit-or-loss business. Felix Kramer
kindly gave me a heads up over the weekend by
pointing me to his latest announcement in the new VentureBeat blog.
       In it he explains his reasons for exploring
the venture capital route in becoming a certified
vehicle modifier, which he's been talking about quietly for the last year.
       He writes...
       "So now we want to launch an ambitious
for-profit. We're talking with other leading PHEV
innovators about combining talents and acquiring
funding to operate in the high-stakes world.
We're hatching plans to rapidly deliver PHEV
conversions to fleets and individuals; work on
original designs; license our intellectual property; and keep innovating.
       "We'll make customers and partners out of
car-makers, suppliers and integrators. Ford, GM
and others could get a boost from PHEVs, as could
emerging Chinese entrants. (Toyota could do it now, but may wait until 2010.)
       "Meanwhile, as an industry in a tailspin
drags its heels on innovation, PHEV engineers
continue to patent answers to technical
challenges that car-makers haven't yet encountered."
       Somehow, I get the sense that the momentum
is shifting away from Michigan and towards
California as 20th century carmakers seem mired
in a long-gone "golden age". In response to many
converging forces, California venture
capitalists, on the other hand, are on the prowl
for the next industrial boom, and this one has a
decidedly 'green energy' patina about it.


--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
               http://www.bettah.org
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

The Electric Drive Transportation Association (EDTA) holds
international conferences every 18-24 months -- and plug-in hybrid
advocates and scientists hold a special PHEV workshop. We spoke at
the last one, in Vancouver in December 2005. In a breakthrough last
year, for the first time the PHEV sessions were part of the main
sequence of events rather than a pre-conference workshop.

Next is EVS-22:The 22nd International Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell
Electric Vehicle Symposium & Exposition <http://www.evs22.org>,
October 23-28 in Yokohama, Japan. The PHEV session is sponsored by
Southern California Edison, the Electric Power Research Institute and
the Japan Automobile Research Institute (SCE/EPRI/JARI).

And this year's change is even more significant. In the "Industry
Perspectives/Auto manufacturers" session, the speakers include
EnergyCS -- indicating that Toyota and DaimlerChrysler did not
strongly object to being joined by a presenter from an aftermarket
PHEV conversion company.

Auto-makers are acknowledging innovation that doesn't come from
internal sources.  Last February, JARI held a seminar of PHEVs
<http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/289.html>. And in June, the US
Dept of Energy hosted auto-makers and PHEV advocates in Washington
for two days <http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/431.html>. This is
a real change. Only last year, a PHEV was "frozen out" of a national
public event when an auto-maker said it would withdraw its
sponsorship if CalCars showed up. At another event, an auto-maker
complained when our cars diverted attention from its fuel cell/hybrid
ride and drive. (In neither instance was Toyota the culprit.)

We expect representatives from many auto-makers and suppliers will be
in attendance. If you're thinking of attending, sign up early: seats
are limited, and it's already about half sold out. Unfortunately, it
looks like this event will not include an actual PHEV -- unless
CalCars raises far more than we came up with to fly our car to
Washington, DC in May. (In fact, at the moment, we can't afford to
attend at all.)

Here's the program. For a one-page PDF,  see http://www.evs22.org/eng/ev.html

Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle Workshop
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Okohama, Yokohama, Japan

Welcome Address
Toshio Kobayashi, President, Japan Automobile Research Institute

Keynote Address
Ed Kjaer, Director, Electric Transportation, Southern California Edison

Introduction To Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles
- Hisashi Ishitani, Professor, Keio University: Overview
- Mark Duvall, Electric Power Research Institute: Plug-In Hybrid
Electric Vehicle Technologies
- Danilo Santini, Argonne National Laboratory: Overview Of IEA Hybrid
And Electric Vehicles Implementing Agreement Annex VII--Plug-In
Hybrid Electric Vehicles--Activities

Government Perspectives On PHEVs
- Shinsuke Ito, Deputy Director of Automobile Division, Manufacturing
Industries Bureau, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan
- Tien Duong, United States Department of Energy: Emerging Us Interest In PHEVs
- Francois Badin, Senior Researcher, Electric and Hybrid Vehicles
Transport and Environment Laboratory, INRETS

Industry Perspectives On PHEVs

Auto Manufacturer
- Shinzo Kobuki, Managing Officer, Toyota Motor Corporation
- Heinz Joergensen, DaimlerChrysler AG: Daimler Chrysler's Plug-In
Hybrid Sprinter Van Project
- Pete Nortman, President, Energy CS

Utility
- Kiyoshi Goto, Executive Officer, General Manager, R&D Center, Tokyo
Electric Power Company
- Cedric Lewandowski, Director, Electric Transportation Division, EDF
- Dean Taylor, Southern California Edison: Environmental Benefits,
Up-Front And Life Cycle Costs

Battery
- Zenpachi Ogumi, Professor, Kyoto University
- Tatsuo Horiba, Director, Advanced Technology Development Center,
Hitachi Vehicle Energy, Ltd.: Development Of Automotive Lithium Ion
Batteries In Japan
- Francois Barsacq, Director, Advanced Sales, Johnson Controls - Saft
Advanced Power Solutions

Discussion And Summary
Hisashi Ishitani, Professor, Keio University

Admission:15000 Japanese yen. Room capacity:190 seats
Languages: English & Japanese (Simultaneous interpretation will be provided.)

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

If there was any doubt left about whether there's a market for PHEVs,
the nation's biggest car dealer just fixed that by saying, "That is a
vehicle that I believe the American consumer will not just consider,
but buy. We look forward to selling it."

AutoNation is self-described as "America's largest retailer of both
new and used vehicles, on and off the web". It was founded by Fort
Lauderdale entrepreneur H. Wayne Huizinga in 1996 as Republic
Industries. Consecutively from 2001-2005, it was among Fortune
Magazine's list of America's most admired companies. With almost 300
dealerships and about 27,000 employees, it's also #112 on the 2005
Fortune 500. The much-admired Mike Jackson, Chairman and CEO since
1999, in an opinion piece in the company's hometown paper, takes a
major step forward.

Better battery can make hybrids more popular
By Mike Jackson
Opinion/Special to the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
September 12 2006
<http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-13forum13sep12,0,1495944.story?col\
l=sfla-news-opinion>

Now that gasoline prices have topped $3 a gallon a few times this
year, there's an enormous buzz about how consumers are suddenly
interested in fuel efficiency. But you have to watch what consumers
do rather than what consumers say they're going to do.

Case in point: hybrids. They're off the charts when it comes to
consumer interest, but sales lag far behind. In fact, while about 57
percent of the buying public expresses interest in purchasing a
hybrid, according to a J.D. Power and Associates study, less than 2
percent do so.

Why the disparity? Because the premium that customers have to pay for
a hybrid is out of proportion to the fuel savings. Hybrids may have a
superclean image, appeal to those who like advanced technology and
offer some mileage benefits, but that's not enough to overcome the
sticker shock experienced by most shoppers.

Those who do buy hybrids have a heightened sense of social
responsibility combined with the financial means to express it. But
unless the premium comes down, those vehicles will never satisfy more
than a niche market.

Nonetheless, they are having a strategic impact because they're
forming the technological foundation of things to come that will be
key to addressing America's energy crisis.

In a sense, today's hybrids are a window to the future of
transportation. And those manufacturers that invested significant
money and resources into their development -- particularly Honda
Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. -- should be congratulated for their
efforts. It takes real courage for a commercial enterprise to develop
and produce products that don't have a clear road to the mass market.

Even the federal government deserves praise for establishing a policy
that promotes increased research and development. The thinking is
that if tax benefits are offered to customers who purchase hybrids,
the market segment will expand, and manufacturers will rush to meet
that growing demand.

As we have seen, though, those benefits are still not enough to draw
consumers. Much of that has to do with inherent limitations in the
technology that extend directly from the industry's earlier, failed
attempt to develop a practical electric car. You don't have to watch
Who Killed the Electric Car? to see what was wrong with it. There's
really no mystery. It was the battery.

A tank of gasoline weighs 100 pounds and will drive you 400 miles. An
automotive battery weighs 1,000 pounds and gets you maybe 100 miles
-- if you don't turn on the air conditioning. Plus, the discharge and
recharge process wears batteries out quickly.

That's where the hybrid comes in.

A hybrid's engine keeps the smaller battery fully charged, solving
the range and fatigue issues. But in a hybrid, the contribution of
the battery is limited. In town, you get a meaningful benefit. On the
highway, you're paying to lug that battery around.

That brings us to what I believe will be one of the technologies that
ultimately will address America's addiction to oil: the plug-in hybrid.

Next-generation batteries are significantly more powerful and can
tolerate discharging and charging much more forgivingly than earlier
versions. And that opens up the possibility of creating a vehicle
that will deliver genuine benefits to consumers and society.

Consider an all-electric mode that has a 50-mile range before the
gasoline engine kicks in. A vehicle that gets the equivalent of 100
mpg; can be fully recharged at night when excess energy capacity is
available; relies on electricity produced in clean, safe domestic
power plants; and delivers all the performance and comfort of a
traditional gasoline-powered car without the damaging emissions or
dangerous geopolitics.

That is a vehicle that I believe the American consumer will not just
consider, but buy. We look forward to selling it.

Mike Jackson is the CEO of AutoNation.

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
               http://www.bettah.org
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

We haven't reported on the earlier announcements
of this project. As the report from Green Car
Congress makes clear, they're doing a two-stage
process: first beefing up the battery pack of the
car (about the same size as EnergyCS's pack for
the much lighter Prius), then enabling
grid-charging. The project, run by a company
incubated and spun off by the Illinois Institute
of Technology, combines the support and resources
of the City of Chicago, angel investors, and
ComEd (formerly Commonwealth Edison). Below re
reproduce the original report, but not the blog comments.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/09/comed_joins_chi.html

ComEd Joins Chicago Plug-in Hybrid Conversion
Project Targeting 2x Fuel Economy for Escape Hybrid
8 September 2006

ComEd, one of the largest US electric utilities
with approximately 5.2 million customers and more
than $15 billion in annual revenues, is joining
the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT)
Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) Project.

The project, announced in January in
collaboration with Chicago-based All Cell
Technologies, the City of Chicago and other
industrial and government partners, is an effort
to convert a Ford Escape hybrid SUV in the city
fleet into a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) using a
lithium-ion battery pack from All Cell.

All Cell is an Illinois Institute of
Technology-based technology transfer company
formed in 2001 by Professors Said Al-Hallaj and
J. Robert Selman to commercialize lithium-ion
batteries in military, medical, portable, and
transportation applications using IIT’s patented
passive thermal management technology with phase change material (PCM).

In June, All Cell Technologies received $1.25
million in financing from Heartland Angels to support the PHEV project.

Phase change materials are substances that change
from solid to liquid and back again when heat is
absorbed and expelled, respectively. In this
process, PCMs maintain a nearly constant
temperature, and thus are employed for thermal
engineering in a number of fields.

According to All Cell, suitable phase change
materials for use in Li-ion battery applications
will have a melting point in the range of between
about 30° C and 60° C; a high latent heat per
unit mass ratio; and a narrow melting temperature range.

CAPTION: An earlier schematic of a PHEV battery
module using All Cell’s PCM thermal management. Click to enlarge.

All Cell is assembling the battery pack from
commercially available 18650 cells integrated
with the company’s PCM technology and control
systems into 8-amp, 14.4-volt modules, according to Dr. Al-Hallaj.

The project is envisioned in two phases. The
first—which has the targeted outcome of doubling
to fuel economy of the Escape hybrid—involves
bypassing the OEM battery pack (not removing it)
with an All Cell pack of approximately 10 kWh.

The PHEV battery will be working with the
constraints of the original controller, thus
limiting all-electric speeds to the original
lower-speed range. Part of the first phase will
be benchmarking the Escape hybrid to determine
the required Wh per mile. Depending on the result
of the benchmarking, All Cell believes that it
might be able to reduce the size of the battery
pack a bit and still meet the 2x target for fuel economy.

The second phase will entail replacing the OEM
battery and original operating strategy of the
controller to support a more robust all-electric range (AER).

The City is supporting the project with a vehicle
and with technical collaboration. If the All Cell
team meets its fuel economy target, the City will
consider converting more vehicles, depending upon price.

ComEd will provide expertise by sharing its best
practices from operating its hybrid vehicles. The
utility owns 64 hybrid Ford Escapes and its SUV
fleet will expand to 114 hybrid vehicles by the
end of 2007. ComEd also will provide expertise in
technical and regulatory matters related to
charging the plug-in hybrid vehicles’ electric
drive systems from the utility’s electrical power distribution system.

ComEd is also interested in studying the
implications of the potential of vehicle-to-grid
charging (V2G) that would emerge with the presence of a large PHEV fleet.

      There are few better validations for an
emerging technology enterprise than partnership
with one of the largest utility providers in the
nation. ComEd’s involvement promises significant
capacity to realize our vision and provide relief
to consumers for the high economic and environmental cost of gasoline.
      —Bob Anderson, president of All Cell

All Cell already has li-ion batteries based on
its PCM technology in the field in medical and
portable applications through a licensing deal with MicroSun Technologies.

Thermal management. High-power applications of
lithium-ion battery systems require comprehensive
thermal management solutions. Operation outside
of the optimum temperature range can degrade the
performance and safety of the battery.

Active cooling solutions use a manifold, fans or
pumps for liquid or air, but also add complexity,
size, weight, cost and points of failure.

The All Cell passive thermal management approach
integrates a PCM impregnated in a graphite matrix
in between the cells of the battery module. The
graphite leads to higher thermal conductivity,
and the PCM acts as a heat sink, absorbing the
heat generated by the battery. The passive system
also reduces battery pack volume and weight
compared to systems that use active thermal management.

The All Cell batteries have operated safely at
temperatures ranging up to 45° C, and have proven
operational in the desert in applications served
by MicroSun Technologies. All Cell has also
determined that its thermal management method can
in some cases double the cycle life of the
battery system compared to those using conventional thermal management.

Resources:
      * US Patent #6,468,689: Thermal management of battery systems
      * US Patent Application #20060073377: Battery system thermal management
      * Novel PCM Thermal Management Makes Li-ion
Batteries a Viable Option for High Power and High
Temperature Applications (MicroSun white paper)
      *  Passive Thermal Management Using Phase
Change Material (PCM) for EV and HEV Li-ion Batteries

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
               http://www.bettah.org
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

This Op-Ed is even more hard-hitting and full of sobering facts and
statistics than his August article in Fortune and his comments on NPR
Science Friday (which we reproduced at
<http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/498.html> and blogged about at
<http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power/food-vs-fuel>.

Starving the People To Feed the Cars
By Lester R. Brown
Washington Post Sunday Outlook, September 10, 2006; Page B03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/08/AR2006090801596.\
html?sub=AR

High oil prices are much more than just a drain on drivers'
pocketbooks or a sign of tough economic times ahead; they could also
prove to be a leading indicator of the unraveling of our global civilization.

That may sound unlikely, or melodramatic. But consider this: Now,
almost everything we eat can be converted into automotive fuel. And
once the price of oil surpassed $60 a barrel last year, the business
of transforming wheat, corn, soybeans and sugarcane into fuel for
cars instead of food for people became hugely profitable. As crops
that have long sustained us are diverted to provide fuel, we may
encounter the same fate that brought down great civilizations of the past.

Plans for new ethanol distilleries and biodiesel refineries are
announced almost daily, setting the stage for an epic competition. In
a narrow sense, it is one between the world's supermarkets and its
service stations. More broadly, it is a battle between the world's
800 million automobile owners, who want to maintain their mobility,
and the world's 2 billion poorest people, who simply want to survive.

Whenever the food value of a crop drops below its fuel value, the
market will convert it into fuel. Ultimately, this dynamic risks
driving up world food prices, destabilizing governments in low-income
nations and disrupting global economic growth.

Ours is not the first society to face a predicament of this kind. In
his book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed," Jared
Diamond assesses our current civilization against the backdrop of
earlier ones, some of which recognized only too late how their future
depended on safeguarding their basic resources.

Take the Sumerian civilization of the fourth millennium BC, which was
based on an ingeniously engineered irrigation system -- one yielding
a food surplus that supported the first cities. Some of the
irrigation water percolated downward, slowly raising the water table.
As the water rose, it began to evaporate, leaving a residue of salt.
Over time, the accumulating salt lowered wheat yields, and the
Sumerians turned to barley, a more salt-tolerant crop. But eventually
the yields of barley also fell, bringing down this once-great civilization.

The New World counterpart to Sumer was the Mayan civilization in the
lowlands of southern Mexico and Guatemala, a society that flourished
from AD 250 until around AD 900. But deforestation and the resulting
soil erosion undermined their agriculture. Today this region is
covered in jungle, reclaimed by nature, and the Mayan civilization is
a mere archaeological curiosity.

Some early societies recognized environmental trouble and fashioned
an effective response. In the 15th century, Icelanders realized that
overgrazing of their grasslands was leading to soil erosion. Farmers
then calculated how many sheep the land could sustain and allocated
quotas among themselves, thus preserving their grasslands -- and a
wool industry that thrives today.

What salt levels, deforestation and soil erosion foretold for past
societies, high oil prices could reveal about our own.

Among the many environmental threats to our future -- increasing
CO2levels, melting ice sheets, rising sea levels, falling water
tables and shrinking forests -- the depletion of oil reserves may be
the most immediate for our oil-based global civilization.

The price of oil has more than tripled over the past four years,
jumping from $20 to nearly $70 a barrel. Mainstream analysts talk
about prices rising to $100 a barrel or more if major disruptions in
supply occur -- such as the explosion of violence and chaos in the
oil-rich Middle East. And even though the discovery of oil reserves
last week beneath the Gulf of Mexico was hailed as a boost for the
U.S. oil industry, it will only temporarily delay the ongoing
depletion. The real news is that so few such discoveries are made.

These runaway oil prices are now driving biofuel production, once
spurred mainly by government subsidies. Brazil, the world's largest
exporter of sugar, converts half of its crop into ethanol for cars,
contributing to a doubling of the world sugar price over the past two
years. In Europe, where rapeseed is grown for both biodiesel and
cooking, margarine manufacturers have asked the European Parliament
for protection from the heavily subsidized biodiesel refineries.

However, it is Malaysia, the leading producer and exporter of palm
oil -- the most widely used vegetable oil -- that plans to lead the
world in biodiesel production. Within the past 18 months, it has
approved 52 proposals to build palm-oil refineries, raising doubts as
to whether there will be enough palm oil to satisfy its export
commitments and to feed these refineries.

And in the United States, investors are jumping on the biofuel
bandwagon, pumping billions into new ethanol distilleries and
biodiesel refineries. Last year, the United Sates produced more than
4 billion gallons of ethanol. Corn use by the ethanol distilleries
has increased from 18 million tons in 2001 to an estimated 55 million
tons from the 2006 crop, or nearly one-sixth of the U.S. grain harvest.

In some Corn Belt states, ethanol distilleries are taking over the
corn supply. In Iowa, a staggering 55 ethanol plants are already
operating or are planned. Iowa State University economist Bob Wisner
observes that if all these plants are completed, they would use
virtually the entire Iowa corn harvest.

With so many distilleries being built, livestock producers fear there
may not be enough corn to feed animals, possibly leading to shortages
in milk, eggs, beef, pork and poultry. And because the United States
supplies 70 percent of world corn exports, importing countries --
such as Egypt, Japan and Mexico -- should be worried, too.

In agricultural terms, our appetite for automotive fuel is
insatiable: The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with
ethanol would feed one person for a full year. If the United States
converted its entire grain harvest into ethanol, it would satisfy
less than 16 percent of its automotive fuel needs.

Yet, no one in the United States or internationally is monitoring the
escalating diversion of grain to fuel distilleries to ensure that it
will not disrupt food supplies. Instead, a market free-for-all
dominates, with commodities going to the highest bidder.

All of this is unfolding as the world's farmers are trying to feed 76
million additional people each year. In six of the past seven years,
world grain consumption has exceeded production. As a result, the
reserve of public and private grain stocks that we rely on as a
carryover from harvest to harvest has fallen to the lowest level in 34 years.

There are alternatives to this food-based fuels scenario. The
equivalent of a 3 percent gain in U.S. automotive fuel supplies from
ethanol could be achieved several times over -- and at a fraction of
the cost -- simply by raising automobile fuel-efficiency standards by
20 percent. We can also shift to highly efficient gas-electric hybrid
plug-in vehicles. And if we invest in wind farms, feeding cheap
electricity into the grid, cars could run primarily on wind energy,
and at the gasoline equivalent of less than $1 a gallon.

Like earlier civilizations, we face a choice. When the Sumerians got
into trouble on the food front, they substituted barley for wheat,
which delayed but did not prevent their ultimate decline. We are
similarly substituting ethanol for oil, treating the symptoms rather
than the cause. The question is whether we will move quickly enough
to reduce our dependence on oil, or whether we will continue with
business as usual. Will we choose to follow the Icelanders, or the
Sumerians and Mayans?

lesterbrown@... Lester R. Brown is president of the Earth
Policy Institute and author of "Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under
Stress and a Civilization in Trouble" (Earth Policy Institute).

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

The New York Times report below somewhat
unexpectedly breaks the story that Google.org,
the philanthropic arm of Google (able to both
give grants and invest in for-profit enterprises)
is planning to take a leading role in helping to
commercialize plug-in hybrids. The staff of the
new organization has been in touch with the
principal "players" in the PHEV world, and we
expect they will make a range of announcements in the coming months.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/technology/14google.html

Philanthropy Google’s Way: Not the Usual
The New York Times, September 14, 2006
By KATIE HAFNER

CAPTION: Dr. Larry Brilliant, the executive
director of Google.org., used to have concerns
about the new foundation’s for-profit status.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 13 — The ambitious founders
of Google, the popular search engine company,
have set up a philanthropy, giving it seed money
of about $1 billion and a mandate to tackle
poverty, disease and global warming.

But unlike most charities, this one will be
for-profit, allowing it to fund start-up
companies, form partnerships with venture
capitalists and even lobby Congress. It will also pay taxes.

One of its maiden projects reflects the
philanthropy’s nontraditional approach. According
to people briefed on the program, the
organization, called Google.org, plans to develop
an ultra-fuel-efficient plug-in hybrid car engine
that runs on ethanol, electricity and gasoline.

The philanthropy is consulting with hybrid-engine
scientists and automakers, and has arranged for
the purchase of a small fleet of cars with plans
to convert the engines so that their gas mileage
exceeds 100 miles per gallon. The goal of the
project is to reduce dependence on oil while
alleviating the effects of global warming.

Google.org is drawing skeptics for both its
structure and its ambitions. It is a slingshot
compared with the artillery of charities
established by older captains of industry. Its
financing pales next to the tens of billions that
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will have
at its disposal, especially with the coming
infusion of some $3 billion a year from Warren E.
Buffett, the founder of Berkshire Hathaway.

But Google’s philanthropic work is coming early
in the company’s lifetime. Microsoft was 25 years
old before Bill Gates set up his foundation,
which is a tax-exempt organization and separate from Microsoft.

By choosing for-profit status, Google will have
to pay taxes if company shares are sold at a
profit — or if corporate earnings are used — to
finance Google.org. Any resulting venture that
shows a profit will also have to pay taxes.
Shareholders may not like the fact that the
Google.org tax forms will not be made public, but
kept private as part of the tax filings of the parent, Google Inc.

Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin,
believe for-profit status will greatly increase
their philanthropy’s range and flexibility. It
could, for example, form a company to sell the
converted cars, finance that company in
partnership with venture capitalists, and even
hire a lobbyist to pressure Congress to pass
legislation granting a tax credit to consumers who buy the cars.

The executive director whom Mr. Page and Mr. Brin
have hired, Dr. Larry Brilliant, is every bit as
iconoclastic as Google’s philanthropic arm. Dr.
Brilliant, a 61-year-old physician and public
health expert, has studied under a Hindu guru in
a monastery at the foothills of the Himalayas and
worked as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

In one project, which Dr. Brilliant brought with
him to the job, Google.org will try to develop a
system to detect disease outbreaks early.

Dr. Brilliant likens the traditional structure of
corporate foundations to a musician confined to
playing only the high register on a piano.
“Google.org can play on the entire keyboard,” Dr.
Brilliant said in an interview. “It can start
companies, build industries, pay consultants,
lobby, give money to individuals and make a profit.”

While declining to comment on the car project
specifically, Dr. Brilliant said he would hope to
see such ventures make a profit. “But if they
didn’t, we wouldn’t care,” he said. “We’re not
doing it for the profit. And if we didn’t get our
capital back, so what? The emphasis is on social
returns, not economic returns.”

Development of ultra-high-mileage cars is under
way at a number of companies, from Toyota to tiny
start-ups. Making an engine that uses E85 — a
mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent
gasoline — is not difficult, but the lack of
availability of the fuel presents a challenge,
said Brett Smith, a senior industry analyst at
the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Another barrier, Mr. Smith said, lies in the
batteries for so-called plug-in hybrids, which
require more powerful batteries that charge more
quickly than the current generation of hybrid batteries.

There are skeptics, too, among tax lawyers and
other pragmatists familiar with the world of
philanthropy. They wonder whether Google’s
directors might be tempted to take back some of
the largess in an economic downturn.

“The money is at the beck and call of the board
of directors and shareholders,” said Marcus S.
Owens, a tax lawyer in Washington who spent a
decade as director of the exempt organizations
division of the Internal Revenue Service. “It’s
possible the shareholders of Google might someday
object, especially if we go into an economic
depression and that money is needed to shore up the company.”

And there is the question of how many of the
planet’s problems can truly be addressed by a single corporate entity.

But even while expressing reservations about
Google’s approach, Mr. Owens said that the
structure of Google.org “eliminates all the
constraints that might otherwise apply.”

The only conventional part of Google.org is the
Google Foundation, a nonprofit with an endowment
of $90 million that is constrained in how it
spends by the 501(c)(3) section of the Internal Revenue Service code.

Google’s big philanthropic experiment lies in the
part of Google.org where the bulk of the funding
now resides. This part of Google.org will be
fully taxable, with the ability to invest in a
full spectrum of programs and companies.

All of Google.org’s spending, Dr. Brilliant said,
will be in keeping with its mission, and there is
to be no “blowback.” That is, should Google.org
make a profit with one of its ventures, those
funds will not go to the search engine business,
but will stay within Google.org.

Google had existed for only six years, when, in
advance of the company’s initial public offering
in August 2004, Mr. Page and Mr. Brin told
potential investors that they planned to set
aside 1 percent of the company’s stock and an
equal percentage of profits for philanthropy. By
the end of 2004, Google.org was formed.

The company has said it plans to spend the money
over the next 20 years, and the Google board
recently approved a more rapid disbursement rate,
$175 million over the next two years.

“Poor people can’t wait,” Dr. Brilliant said.
“Dying people can’t wait for some 20-year plan.
It’s not what we’re doing here.”

Ventures that grow out of Google.org could be
seen to have a competitive edge because they do
not need to show a financial profit. But
financial returns from a project like the
high-mileage car are not necessarily the aim.

“I think how you count profit is the issue here,”
said Peter Hero, president of the Community
Foundation of Silicon Valley, a charitable
foundation with about $1 billion in assets.
“Google.org is measuring return on cleaner air
and quality of life. Their bottom line isn’t just
financial. It’s environmental and social.”

Once Google.org was formed, the company spent
months searching for an executive director. There
was no lack of interest in the job.

“Literally thousands of people worldwide got in
touch with us,” said Sheryl Sandberg, the Google
vice president who led the search. “We’d get
someone who was an amazing technology
entrepreneur but who didn’t know anything about the developing world.”

Then along came Dr. Brilliant, an affable man
generous with bearhugs and self-deprecating humor
whose unlikely résumé looks like a composite
career summary of multiple high achievers.

After receiving his medical degree, Dr. Brilliant
studied for two years with Neem Karoli Baba, a famous Hindu guru.

As Dr. Brilliant tells the story, in 1973,
shortly before the guru’s death, he told Dr.
Brilliant to “take off the ashram whites” and use
his skills as a physician to help eradicate
smallpox, which was devastating India at the time.

Dr. Brilliant joined a team of United Nations
workers who painstakingly worked their way
through India inoculating people against the
disease. In 1980, the World Health Organization
declared that smallpox had been eradicated.

In 1978, Dr. Brilliant started the Seva
Foundation, which focuses on preventing and
curing blindness throughout Asia and Latin
America. In 1985, Dr. Brilliant was a co-founder
of the Well, a seminal online community.
Throughout the 1990’s and early 2000’s, he ran
several high-tech companies in Silicon Valley.

Dr. Brilliant first heard about Google.org in
early 2005 while lying in bed in India, sick with
dysentery. He had gone there to work with the
polio eradication program of the United Nations
and, while recovering, he saw news of Google.org in a local newspaper.

He sent an inquiry to the only e-mail address he
could find: info@.... He got no response.

This year, Dr. Brilliant was awarded the TED
Prize, an award given at the annual Technology,
Entertainment and Design conference, a gathering
of leaders from the technology and entertainment
industries. The prize awards three recipients
$100,000, and a “wish” for how to change world.

Dr. Brilliant’s wish was for the creation of an
“early detection, rapid response” system for
disease outbreaks. The idea would be an
open-source, nongovernmental, public access
network for detecting, reporting and responding to pandemics.

Some Google insiders heard about the award and
invited Dr. Brilliant to give a talk at the
company. Mr. Page and Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s
chief executive, were in the audience as Dr.
Brilliant described the polio eradication efforts
of the United Nations. They agreed they had found
their director and began to recruit him.

At first, Dr. Brilliant said, he was thrilled.
But then he turned skeptical, largely because of
the for-profit structure of the organization.

“I got weak knees,” he said. “It was weird. It
was precedent setting.” After several lengthy
conversations with executives at Google, Dr.
Brilliant changed his mind. Six months into the
job, he has traveled to India to visit eye
clinics and polio vaccination projects with Mr.
Page, and to China to discuss clean energy
alternatives. Next week, he leaves for Africa to
visit Google grant recipients in Ghana.

Dr. Brilliant said he had no desire to “reinvent
the wheel” by working on projects others are
already involved in. And although Google is a
high-tech company, that does not mean that
Google.org will be throwing around high-tech solutions.

“Why would we put Wi-Fi in a place where what
they need is food and clean water?” he said.

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

We've gotten many inquiries today in the wake of The New York Times
report <http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/516.html>. (Sorry for the
erroneous re-posting of the story.)

Here is the official word from Google.org:
"As Google.org is committed to helping to address global warming, we
are interested in encouraging the rapid development of cleaner and
more efficient energy solutions, such as advanced hybrid flex fuel
vehicles.  While we have no plans to announce at this time, we look
forward to joining with others working to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions by investigating and investing in new approaches and
technologies that could have the potential to reduce this global threat."

Here's CalCars' statement:
"We're delighted Google is focusing on advanced hybrid flex fuel
vehicles and we're holding our breath for what comes next from them."


Here are our further comments, on this news and on the extraordinary
events of the past weeks (see <http://www.calcars.org/news-archive.html>)

* Toyota announcements that they're "pursuing" PHEVs
* New support streams -- announcements from Silicon Valley CEOs,
AutoNation, PG&E, etc.
* Our success with the AB32 delegation to Sacramento in getting the
word out about innovation and global warming and how PHEVs fit in
* Endorsement by venture capitalist John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins
(""Plug-in hybrids are a really big deal. They are practical,
profitable and urgently needed.")
* Our progress in plans to sponsor a for-profit company, not to
replace CalCars.org but to speed commercialization of PHEVs and the
arrival of vehicles on our roads.

With all this news, people are assuming that it's "game over."
Plug-in hybrids will happen. And as a side note, people assume
CalCars is flourishing ("CalCars must be -- they continue to be in
the middle of great news every day!") Or maybe they think we've
achieved our goals. In fact, we won't be done until most new
production vehicles run mostly on  electricity and are fully
optimized to use lightweightingl, digital controls, customization and
many other technologies. Together these will reduce CO2 emissions and
oil use enormously and bring us "Better Cars."

Perhaps as a side effect, contributions to
<http://www.calcars.org/sponsor.html> have fallen off sharply. Yet
though I can talk to CEOs, with a few exceptions they aren't funding
us. Of our three full-time people, Technology Lead Ron Gremban and I
are now back to being full-time volunteers (which we can't do for
long) and Communications Director John Davi has cut back to 25% time
as a volunteer, doing start-up consulting the rest of the time. And
while we're making progress in interesting people in the for-profit
concept, that isn't going to be quick, and it won't fund all our
advocacy efforts.

As a result we're passing up opportunities all the time to
participate in events, start new projects, work with battery
companies, Tier One integrators, etc.

I mention all this in hopes that in addition to the welcome support
from those among the 4,000 subscribers to CalCars News who can afford
to contribute, well-connected people will be able to bring to us a
few high-wealth individuals who recognize the value of our efforts
and whose tax-deductible contributions can enable us to concentrate
on doing our jobs instead of spending so much time raising money.

Later I expect to turn this into a blog posting at
<http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power> where you can comment.

Thanks for all your encouragement!

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
               http://www.bettah.org
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

DaimlerChrysler remains the only major car-maker with a PHEV
prototype program. They've built a few vehicles using their Mercedes
Sprinter platform (a commercial or 15-passenger  van --see
<http://www.calcars.org/vehicles.html#5> for some info), and one of
them is making its first public appearance.

New York Gets Plug-In Hybrid Van
[http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=communique&newsid=13029&url=
Source: NYPA Sep 15, 2006]

SYNOPSIS: NYPA, DaimlerChrysler and EPRI Introduce Plug-In Hybrid
Electric Concept Vehicle

NEW YORK -- The New York Power Authority (NYPA) and the Electric
Power Research Institute (EPRI) have teamed with DaimlerChrysler to
display the latest advancement in plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV)
technology, the Sprinter Van concept vehicle.

One of these concept utility vehicles was showcased today at the Hugh
L. Carey Battery Park City, in front of the Solaire, America's first
residential high-rise green building. NYPA President and Chief
Executive Officer Timothy S. Carey was joined by Battery Park City
Authority President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Cavanaugh,
DaimlerChrysler Senior Manager Claus Tritt and EPRI Senior Account
Executive Rebecca Wingenroth, to present the vehicle.

"Under Governor George Pataki's leadership the Power Authority has
advanced a number of green initiatives. In the realm of
transportation, our electric transportation program is committed to
putting electric and hybrid electric-cars and buses on New York's
streets, and in government and customer fleets. Now we are working
with the Electric Power Research Institute and DaimlerChrysler to
pave the way for the next big thing in automotive
transportation?plug-in hybrids," said Carey.

"The Hugh L. Carey Battery Park City Authority has become a model for
environmentally responsible urban living, so it is only natural that
we would welcome an opportunity to help showcase a concept vehicle
designed to help protect our environment. Battery Park City has a
productive relationship with NYPA, the state's largest provider of
lower-cost electricity and a supporter of electric-drive vehicle use
for public fleets," said Cavanaugh.

"DaimlerChrysler is the only manufacturer to build plug-in hybrid
vehicles to test with customers," said Nick Cappa, Manager of
Advanced Technology Communications DaimlerChrysler. "What we're
learning from this proof of concept fleet will apply to future hybrid
powertrain and battery technology."

"The plug-in Sprinter Van represents a significant step along a
series of important developments that will lead to commercializing
Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles," said Robert Graham, manager,
EPRI's Electric Transportation Program. "Many of the technological
advantages are clear?a vehicle operating primarily on electricity is
a cheaper ride, air emissions are significantly lower and it reduces
our reliance on imported oil."

Ongoing EPRI studies indicate that fleet applications offer the best
opportunity for the early demonstration of plug-in hybrids.

Today's unveiling is the first of a series of public events planned
for New York State to highlight this plug-in hybrid electric concept
vehicle. NYPA has joined an alliance created by EPRI, in cooperation
with DaimlerChrysler to demonstrate plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles
in various fleets around the country.

In 2006 and 2007, four prototype vehicles currently being tested in
Germany will be brought to the United States under a federal waiver
and tested by customers for a three-year period. NYPA plans to
demonstrate one of these vehicles in the fleet of The New York Times.

Plug-in hybrids can operate in either an all-electric or hybrid mode.
These vehicles have larger batteries than standard non-plug-in
hybrids, which allow them to travel distances in the all
electric-only mode. The Sprinter plug-in concept vehicle has an
electric range of up to 20 miles. On short urban routes, with lots of
stop-and-go driving, this vehicle may operate for most of the day in
electric mode.

In the hybrid mode, the vehicle performs like a standard hybrid, with
significantly lower emissions and fuel consumption than conventional
diesel or gasoline vehicles.

NYPA is a recognized national leader in the promotion and
demonstration of electric drive technologies. In New York City, NYPA
worked with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to introduce
hybrid-electric buses. Over the last 10 years, NYPA has placed more
than 800 electric drive vehicles in service with customer fleets.

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
               http://www.bettah.org
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

It looks like this episode of the popular "Modern Marvels" show will
be informative...our PHEVs were filmed along with lots of other
energy solutions. Probably worth watching! Below is a description.

And by the way, you can now listen to the 80-minute audio stream of
the June 29 PHEV event at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club at
<http://www.calcars.org/audio-video.html>: we list it among many
others at <http://www.calcars.org/audio-video.html>l.

Modern Marvels: Renewable Energy premieres on Wednesday, September
20, 2006, 8 PM Eastern and Pacific, 7 PM Central on The History
Channel.Check your local cable or satellite provider to confirm the time).

It's becoming increasingly clear that the 21st Century will face at
least two grave, interconnected crises: global climate change, and
excessive dependence on steadily depleting fossil fuels.

By now you've heard all about the problems. Find out about the
solutions on Modern Marvels: Renewable Energy. This one-hour History
Channel documentary will show how the combined forces of wind, solar,
geothermal, biomass, wave and tidal power are ready to move the world
beyond oil, coal and other 19th Century technologies.

On our one-hour journey, we'll see a major FedEx distribution center
powered almost entirely by rooftop solar panels, a wind power project
in New York State that exemplifies the new cooperation between
farmers and "alternative" power sources. We'll visit Iceland, a
nation that gets over half its energy from geothermal steam and hot
water and the British Isles, where bold new designs in wave and tidal
power may one day point the way to clean, limitless energy. We'll
jump into the heated debate over the future of the automobile:
biodiesel, ethanol, plug-in hybrids, and even vegetable oil, which
technologies can best supplant our civilization's addiction to oil?
And along the way, we'll see how humankind has used renewable energy
sources for hundreds, even thousands, of years: from the Anasazi
Indians' brilliant use of passive solar architecture to the
innovative tower windmills of Holland.

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
               http://www.bettah.org
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

We've recently seen several high-profile cases with videos of
lithium-ion laptop computer batteries burning at near-explosion
intensely. (One highly publicized picture of a destroyed truck turned
out to have a longer story: laptop batteries had actually ignited
ammunition which blew up the gas tank
<http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/08/dell_fire.html>. Dell
has recalled millions of Li-ion laptop batteries, followed by Apple.
What does this mean for Li-ion battery safety in battery electric
(EV) and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) vehicles?

I asked CalCars Tech Lead Ron Gremban to put together an overview of
some of the main issues, taking into account what's public
information on the approaches of some companies using lithium
batteries for cars, such as (alphabetically) AC Propulsion, EnergyCS,
Hybrids-Plus, Hymotion, Phoenix Motorcars and Tesla Motors. Ron has
tried to strike a balance between technical discussions and broad
descriptions, sticking primarily to existing products and solutions.
We're aware that this is a very complex subject and that technologies
are evolving rapidly -- we are describing starting points and raising
questions. You can also comment at our blog,
<http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power/battery-safety>.

First, we need to remind ourselves that the current automotive fuel
source is highly flammable and explosive gasoline, stored in a
lightweight steel tank. Over time, we've learned how to make this
reasonably safe -- and to live with the occasional explosive
consequences, especially in crashes. (In the U.S., over 250,000
vehicles of all types caught fire in 2005
<http://www.nfpa.org/itemDetail.asp?categoryID=953&itemID=29658&URL=Research%20&\
%20Reports/Fire%20statistics/Trends&cookie%5Ftest=1>.
This may amount to 1 in every 1,000 vehicles -- far more than one
might expect.)

How will Li-ion battery packs compare? The laptop computer fires that
prompted the recent recalls are very rare -- on the order of one in
60 million cells -- but with hundreds or thousands of cells in each
vehicle, the likelihood of failure is both greatly increased and more
dangerous.

Though we hope all manufacturers will use best design practices,
including safety features detailed below, it's impossible to
anticipate all possible modes of failure. Until enough EVs and PHEVs
are on the road to gather meaningful statistics, we'll be guessing
about what could happen. Even then, some designs will fare better
than others, and we will continue to learn from the school of hard knocks.

NOTE: I am not enough of an expert on battery chemistry for this to
be used as a design document.

Li-ion batteries' major specific issue is their propensity for
thermal runaway. Above a certain temperature, usually 80-150 degrees
C, a reaction can occur that produces more heat than can be
dissipated. And since each cell contains both fuel and oxidizer, the
reaction fuels itself. The temperatures and pressures produced are
high enough to melt steel barriers and shoot flames over 20 feet.
This makes containment difficult. Additionally, any battery can be
shorted, producing an explosive energy discharge if not quickly stopped.

Though proper fusing can greatly reduce the likelihood of serious
results from inter-cell shorts, little can be done to save a cell
with an internal short, such as occurred in the laptop cells that
prompted the recalls. "Rick Clancy, a Sony spokesman, said, the
problem appears to have been caused by microscopic metal particles in
cavities in the battery cells in each battery pack."
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/21/BUGD0KKE6O1.DTL>
(San Francisco Chronicle) Apparently, the particles occasionally
caused an internal short after vibration moved them around.

We can divide available prevention methods into cell chemistry, cell
design, electronic control and monitoring, and battery pack design
and containment.

CELL CHEMISTRY: Lithium is a very volatile metal that will burn if
exposed to air at room temperature. Lithium-ion cells are so named
because the lithium in them is not pure but combined into ionic
compounds -- a trade-off that increases safety at the cost of reduced
specific energy (energy storage per battery weight). Generally,
cobalt, manganese, and/or phosphates are used in these compounds for
a Li-ion cell's cathode. The anode is usually carbon, and the
electrolyte is a flammable organic solvent. If the cell's voltage is
allowed to exceed or go below certain values, metallic lithium can
"plate out," not only degrading the cell, but making it much more
susceptible to future thermal runaway.

Li-ion cobalt batteries, used in laptop computers and cell phones
because of their superior specific energy, are the most susceptible
to both thermal runaway and the plating-out of metallic lithium. In
fact, while reaching a full charge requires a voltage of 4.15V, each
cell's voltage must stay under 4.25V to prevent plating! This
requires unusually precise electronics on a cell-by-cell (or set of
parallel cells) basis (see below).

Manganese is often used in Li-ion cells for power tools because it
produces higher specific power (the rate at which energy can be
supplied) despite lower specific energy. This chemistry is less
susceptible to thermal runaway and plating. Even less susceptible are
phosphate-based cells, but they trade off even more specific energy.
Three companies -- Valence, Electrovaya, and A123 -- are starting to
provide these safer phosphate-based cells for electric vehicles. So
far, manganese and phosphate cells have been significantly more
expensive than their cobalt brethren. This is mainly due to lower
manufacturing volume, but has so far limited their use in
cost-effective electric vehicles.

CELL DESIGN: Various fail-safe mechanisms can be, but are often not,
built into each Li-ion cell:

* An over-temperature and/or over-pressure cutoff device (usually
permanently disabling the cell) can save the cell from thermal
runaway if the source of the problem is current into or out of the cell.
* A flame-retardant can be added to minimize the effects of a cell
fire. Quallion has developed such an additive. It has not yet been
incorporated into consumer product batteries, but it could provide a
cost-effective additional layer of safety for EV battery packs.

ELECTRONIC CONTROL AND MONITORING: The tight 4.15-4.25V Li-ion charge
voltage tolerance (somewhat different for non-cobalt-based cells)
means that each cell (or set of cells in parallel) must have its own
precise over-voltage protection circuit. Otherwise, the voltage
balance among series strings of cells may vary too much due to
variations between cells, or to degradation or failure of a single
cell. Though under-voltage protection requires less precision, it is
usually included in the same circuits. As protection circuits can
occasionally fail and allow the very conditions they were designed to
avoid, additional layers of protection are required as well.

The next level of defense is to detect overheating and shut things
down before thermal runaway. This, as well as monitoring voltages and
temperatures that are still within limits, can catch some battery
anomalies that might otherwise eventually turn into catastrophic failures.

BATTERY PACK DESIGN AND CONTAINMENT: A well-designed battery pack
will normally prevent cells from heating to unstable temperatures.
Even such basic thermal design can be overlooked. And though
containment of a multi-cell fire may be difficult, optimal design
will prevent a single-cell fire from spreading. Tesla Motors says its
testing demonstrates that its liquid cooling and careful design does
indeed prevent the spread of a single-cell fire.

Battery containment should be designed to vent fumes from
malfunctioning cells rather than send them into the passenger
compartment. Packs should be placed beyond crush zones, if possible.
For PHEVs they should also be as far as possible from the fuel tank.

The US Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) :
<http://www.uscar.org/consortia&teams/consortiahomepages/con-usabc.htm>
focuses on specifications for batteries used in vehicles. Its Abuse
Test Procedures Manual
<http://www.uscar.org/consortia&teams/USABC/Manuals/USABC_Abuse_Test_Procedure_M\
anual.pdf>
includes mechanical (shock, drop, penetration, crush, etc.), thermal,
and electrical abuse tests. This test regime provides an objective
standard with which to judge battery packs for safety. The major
automobile manufacturers will no doubt (for very good reasons) insist
on their vehicles' battery packs passing the USABC tests.

Increased public awareness will no doubt put a spotlight on companies
building or modifying vehicles into EVs and PHEVs, to explain their
approaches to battery safety. Whether or not they submit their packs
to formal USABC testing, the USABC safety criteria must be addressed.
Tesla Motors Co-Founder Martin Eberhard, for example, responded to
questions in a Technology Review Forum on August 4
<http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17250&ch=biztech>
and then in a Battery White Paper
<http://www.teslamotors.com/media/white_papers/TeslaRoadsterBatterySystem.pdf>,
Tesla delineated the layers of safety features in its battery pack.

Of course, experimenters must also be cognizant of battery safety
issues. Though they may not have the resources to validate their
designs through destructive testing, they still need to design for
both thermal and electrical safety.

Though safety issues must be addressed in vehicle and battery pack
designs, we believe well-designed EV and PHEV vehicles with Li-ion
battery packs can be as safe as the gasoline vehicles they replace.

You can also comment at our blog,
<http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power/battery-safety>.

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
   --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

You can see discussions of this at
<http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/08/hymotion_delive.html> and
read HOURCAR's press releases at <http://www.hourcar.org/index.html>.
As the first external customer to get a vehicle from Hymotion,
HOURCAR is requesting that questions about the car's performance be
directed to Hymotion.


Press Release: Hymotion converts HOURCAR's Car-sharing Prius into a
Plug-in Hybrid
http://www.hymotion.com/pdf/Hymotion-HourcarPressRelease.pdf

"In terms of being environmentally friendly, you can't beat a program
like HOURCAR's, that gives you the option to conserve through
car-sharing, but also by allowing you to pick one of the greenest
vehicles out there.", President Ricardo Bazzarella said today.

Toronto, ON. August 21, 2006: Today Hymotion, a world leader in
plug-in hybrid technology, announced that it had delivered one of its
L5 Prius Plug-in Hybrid systems to HOURCAR, a car-sharing program
that serves the Twin Cities, MN.

The Hymotion L5 plug-in system serves to more than double the already
admirable fuel efficiency of Toyota's Prius hybrid. The Hymotion
system boasts 100 mpg at speeds of 70 mph, for the first 30-35 miles
and an amazing 250+ mpg in the city at speeds up to 35 miles. To
recharge the battery system, you simply plug it into a regular
household electrical outlet.

HOURCAR is the Twin Cities' fast-growing car-sharing program.
HOURCAR, buys, insures, and maintains a fleet of member-shared cars.
Research shows that many car owners use their vehicles only a few
hours a day. Car-sharing spreads the fixed costs of car ownership
among several people. It serves the city with its 13-vehicle fleet of
new Toyota Priuses, gas-electric hybrids that regularly garner over
47 miles to the gallon and produce relatively few emissions. Now
Hymotion plug-in technology has turned one of HOURCAR's Priuses into
a PHEV, which will allow for even greater fuel economy, even fewer
emissions, and hopefully a new way of looking at the future of driving.


If you want a run-down of all the current and expected options from
after-market companies, see the table at
<http://www.eaa-phev.org/wiki/Prius_PHEV> -- and we'll be updating
our summaries at <http://www.calcars.org/howtoget.html>

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

HyBrids-Plus becomes the third after-market company to develop a PHEV
Prius. It's using the "nano-lithium" batteries  from A123 Systems
that received considerable attention when they began to be available
recently in DeWalt power tools. Initial pricing (in addition to the
price of a car) will be $24,000-$32,500, with the expectation of
reducing those prices by up to 50% in the coming year.

We start with the Colorado State Government press release, then add
additional links and some comments.

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&ne\
wsId=20060918005081&newsLang=en

   September 18, 2006 08:00 AM Eastern Time
New Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle Debuts at Clean Energy Event

DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 18, 2006--A new plug-in hybrid
electric vehicle, capable of 125 mpg and receiving electricity from
or sending it to the grid, will be available for viewing at "Clean
Energy Partnerships." The event, part of the statewide Colorado's
Tech Week, will be in Fort Collins on Monday, September 18.

The Colorado Governor's Office of Energy Management and Conservation
(OEMC) is working with several partners on this project.
Hybrids-Plus, Inc. converted a 2006 Toyota Prius into a plug-in
hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) for demonstration purposes.
A123Systems supplied the state-of-the-art lithium ion batteries and
the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory
(NREL) and Xcel Energy will perform a benefit analysis of the project.

"Hybrids-Plus, based in Boulder, Colorado, is one of the few
companies in the country to offer this conversion. This PHEV
demonstration is generating a great deal of interest in other hybrid
conversions," said Drew Bolin, director of OEMC.

The batteries are a new generation of high-power lithium ion used
for, among other things, cordless power tools, and have been
installed as a self-contained battery pack in the rear of the
vehicle. The design takes some of the space occupied by a storage
tray now in the trunk, but allows access for, and to, the spare tire.

"A123Systems' improvements in lithium ion battery technology will
enable much greater yields in conventional transportation for vehicle
mileage in a safe and reliable manner. A123Systems is involved in
this PHEV demonstration in order to demonstrate the advantages of
this technology and make it available on a wider scale to the
public," said Roger Lin of A123Systems.

This Prius will also soon have Vehicle to Grid (V2G) capability,
which means it can provide power to as well as receive power from the
electrical grid. A study by Xcel Energy and NREL will assess the
collective effects of thousands of PHEVs. Further, the study will
determine the emissions profile of the car, as well as those from the
greater simulated number, to make recommendations how best to
incorporate these new-generation vehicles into the electrical grid.

"Xcel Energy is committed to supporting the widespread deployment of
plug-in hybrid vehicle technologies and preparing to meet future
customer needs related to alternative fuel transportation," said
Michael Lamb, executive director of Utility Innovations at Xcel
Energy. "We expect our joint study with NREL will uncover the
potential for PHEVs to ultimately increase the overall reliability
and sustainability of our existing electricity grid infrastructure."

"PHEVs can reduce our dependence on foreign oil without costly
infrastructure investment," said Keith Parks, an analyst at NREL.
"The electricity used to provide power to these vehicles is already
available at every home and business."

The primary advantage of converting to a PHEV is for better mileage,
less oil consumption, and lower driving costs. Additionally, PHEVs
can be driven strictly as an electric vehicle during in-town driving
or at speeds less than 35 mph, offering another fuel-saving feature
along with lower tailpipe emissions.

"We were able to place a larger-capacity pack in the same location as
the original battery pack, and for even greater range we placed cells
in unused areas inside the vehicle. We retain the original storage
space and spare tire location so that the conversion is next to
invisible to the user, except of course for the extended mileage.
Although today's conversion cost is high, that cost, as well as
installation time, is expected to drop in the next few years by 30 to
50 percent making this technology widely available to businesses and
individual consumers alike," said Carl Lawrence of Hybrids-Plus.

Launch Event for the PHEV Prius Information:

The PHEV Prius will be available for viewing on Monday, September 18,
from 8:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Colorado State University Engine
and Energy Conversions Laboratory, which is the host site for the
"Clean Energy Partnerships" event. For more information on this event
and viewing the car, call Megan Castle at 303-866-2262 or visit
http://www.state.co.us/oemc/press/2006-08-23.pdf.

Project Partner Contact Information:
-- A123Systems, Roger Lin, rlin@..., www.a123systems.com
-- Hybrids-Plus, Inc., Carl Lawrence, carl.lawrence@...,
www.hybrids-plus.com
-- NREL, Keith Parks, Keith_Parks@..., www.nrel.gov
-- OEMC, Ed Lewis, Ed.Lewis@..., www.colorado.gov/oemc
-- Xcel Energy, Mark Stutz, mark.stutz@..., www.xcelenergy.com

At <http://www.hybrids-plus.com/ht/products.html>, we like the
Hybrids-Plus graphic, showing Toyota's message, "You Never Need to
Plug It In (TM)", crossed out to become "You Willl Want to Plug It In."

For the visually-oriented, in addition to the links from that
Hybrids-Plus page, here are more photos:
http://hybrids-plus.com/pmwiki/index.php?n=Ext.Gallery

For the technically-minded, the company has participated in
the  EAA-PHEV website, providing some specifications there:
http://www.eaa-phev.org/wiki/Hybrids-Plus

There's lots more on the website, including a FAQ:
http://www.hybrids-plus.com/ht/faq.html
And here are CalCars Tech Lead Ron Gremban's comments:
* They plan to have two 23Ah x 180V battery packs, each with 600 (10
parallel x 60 series) A123 cells.  Each is 4.1 kWh, which should be
good for around 13 miles EV range to 80% depth of discharge
(DOD).  The one existing pack is currently uncooled, but is expected
to be air cooled.  Thermal load is minimal due to the A123s' low
internal resistance.
* One pack will fit in place of the original equipment manufacturer
(OEM) battery, leaving even the existing tool tray intact.  If the
optional second pack is added, it will fit along one side, above and
beside the spare tire, allowing for continued spare tire
access.  Cell weight is 42 kg/pack, so the total weight of one pack
is probably around 110 lb.  Due to removal of the OEM battery,
vehicle weight from the first pack should be increased imperceptibly
if at all.
* The car has a custom battery management system (BMS), with a small
board for each parallel set of cells, all communicating to a central
CPU via a single wire.  Like EnergyCS', the BMS replaces Toyota's
battery engine control unit (ECU) and mimics the Toyota Battery ECU's
controller area network (CAN) bus conversation with the car's other
Hybrid Synergy Drive (HSD) computers.  Perceived state of charge
(SOC) is adjustable (presumably soon to be automated), but charge
current limit (CCL) is kept steady at 105A.
* EV-only mode (entered by emulating the Prius' European/Asian
EV-only button) is not currently used, meaning that pure electric
operation is available only to 60A/15hp (VERY mild acceleration, vs.
the still-moderate 120A/30 hp EV capability available in EV-only
mode).  However, just as with all other Prius conversions when not in
EV-only mode, the engine can be coaxed (via minimal throttle and
maximum perceived SOC) into remaining stopped up to as high as 42-50 mph.
* It uses a custom 1.5 kW charger with a very innovative 120VAC power
plug that hides in place of one of the car's rear license plate lamps.

If you want a run-down of all the current and expected options from
after-market companies, see the table at
http://www.eaa-phev.org/wiki/Prius_PHEV -- and we'll be updating our
summaries at http://www.calcars.org/howtoget.html
(We can't confirm speculation that A123 will also be supplying
batteries to Hymotion)


--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

Include us among those who felt that while "An Inconvenient Truth"
was an effective wake-up call, it fell short in giving audiences a
vision of large-scale ways to address what Al Gore calls "Climate Crisis."

In a Monday speech at NYU Law School, he began to fill in some of the
gaps, including a call for a Carbon Freeze and "Connie Mae" --  a
Carbon Neutral Mortgage Association that could be extended to cover
financing for green cars. I suggest the entire speech is worth
reading. (It took an hour for him to deliver it; you may be able to
read it in half that time.) You can find it at
<http://www.nyu.edu/community/gore.html>; we've also turned it into a
two-column, eight-page document you can download and print or pass on
to others at <http://www.calcars.org/gore-nyulawspeech-18sept06.doc>.

Though in the past two years, I've approached Gore three times after
speeches; twice I was able to put in his hands info on PHEVs. Many
others have contacted him through intermediaries. Whatever or whoever
finally got to him, we're glad he's now talking about plug-in
hybrids. (Appropriately, it came at an event co-sponsored by Set
America Free, the group that has tirelessly promoted PHEVs.) Below
I've included a few inspirational excerpts, then his call for a
"national oil change."

Former Vice President Al Gore
New York University School of Law, September 18, 2006
<snip>
Each passing day brings yet more evidence that we are now facing a
planetary emergency - a climate crisis that demands immediate action
to sharply reduce carbon dioxide emissions worldwide in order to turn
down the earth's thermostat and avert catastrophe.

The serious debate over the climate crisis has now moved on to the
question of how we can craft emergency solutions in order to avoid
this catastrophic damage.
<snip>
My purpose is not to present a comprehensive and detailed blueprint -
for that is a task for our democracy as a whole - but rather to try
to shine some light on a pathway through this terra incognita that
lies between where we are and where we need to go. Because, if we
acknowledge candidly that what we need to do is beyond the limits of
our current political capacities, that really is just another way of
saying that we have to urgently expand the limits of what is
politically possible.

I have no doubt that we can do precisely that, because having served
almost three decades in elected office, I believe I know one thing
about America's political system that some of the pessimists do not:
it shares something in common with the climate system; it can appear
to move only at a slow pace, but it can also cross a tipping point
beyond which it can move with lightning speed. Just as a single
tumbling rock can trigger a massive landslide, America has sometimes
experienced sudden avalanches of political change that had their
beginnings with what first seemed like small changes.

Two weeks ago, Democrats and Republicans joined together in our
largest state, California, to pass legally binding sharp reductions
in CO2 emissions. 295 American cities have now independently
"ratified" and embraced CO2 reductions called for in the Kyoto
Treaty. 85 conservative evangelical ministers publicly broke with the
Bush-Cheney administration to call for bold action to solve the
climate crisis. Business leaders in both political parties have taken
significant steps to position their companies as leaders in this
struggle and have adopted a policy that not only reduces CO2 but
makes their companies zero carbon companies. Many of them have
discovered a way to increase profits and productivity by eliminating
their contributions to global warming pollution.

Many Americans are now seeing a bright light shining from the far
side of this no-man's land that illuminates not sacrifice and danger,
but instead a vision of a bright future that is better for our
country in every way - a future with better jobs, a cleaner
environment, a more secure nation, and a safer world.
<snip>
Third, a responsible approach to solutions would avoid the mistake of
trying to find a single magic "silver bullet" and recognize that the
answer will involve what Bill McKibben has called "silver-buckshot" -
numerous important solutions, all of which are hard, but no one of
which is by itself the full answer for our problem.

One of the most productive approaches to the "multiple solutions"
needed is a road-map designed by two Princeton professors, Rob
Socolow and Steven Pacala, which breaks down the overall problem into
more manageable parts. Socolow and Pacala have identified 15 or 20
building blocks (or "wedges") that can be used to solve our problem
effectively - even if we only use 7 or 8 of them. I am among the many
who have found this approach useful as a way to structure a
discussion of the choices before us.
<snip>
I look forward to the deep discussion and debate that lies ahead. But
there are already some solutions that seem to stand out as
particularly promising:

First, dramatic improvements in the efficiency with which we
generate, transport and use energy will almost certainly prove to be
the single biggest source of sharp reductions in global warming
pollution. Because pollution has been systematically ignored in the
old rules of America's marketplace, there are lots of relatively easy
ways to use new and more efficient options to cheaply eliminate it.
Since pollution is, after all, waste, business and industry usually
become more productive and efficient when they systematically go
about reducing pollution. After all, many of the technologies on
which we depend are actually so old that they are inherently far less
efficient than newer technologies that we haven't started using. One
of the best examples is the internal combustion engine. When
scientists calculate the energy content in BTUs of each gallon of
gasoline used in a typical car, and then measure the amounts wasted
in the car's routine operation, they find that an incredible 90% of
that energy is completely wasted. One engineer, Amory Lovins, has
gone farther and calculated the amount of energy that is actually
used to move the passenger (excluding the amount of energy used to
move the several tons of metal surrounding the passenger) and has
found that only 1% of the energy is actually used to move the person.
This is more than an arcane calculation, or a parlor trick with
arithmetic. These numbers actually illuminate the single biggest
opportunity to make our economy more efficient and competitive while
sharply reducing global warming pollution.
<snip>
A second group of building blocks to solve the climate crisis
involves America's transportation infrastructure. We could further
increase the value and efficiency of a distributed energy network by
retooling our failing auto giants - GM and Ford - to require and
assist them in switching to the manufacture of flex-fuel, plug-in,
hybrid vehicles. The owners of such vehicles would have the ability
to use electricity as a principle source of power and to supplement
it by switching from gasoline to ethanol or biodiesel. This
flexibility would give them incredible power in the marketplace for
energy to push the entire system to much higher levels of efficiency
and in the process sharply reduce global warming pollution.

This shift would also offer the hope of saving tens of thousands of
good jobs in American companies that are presently fighting a losing
battle selling cars and trucks that are less efficient than the ones
made by their competitors in countries where they were forced to
reduce their pollution and thus become more efficient.

It is, in other words, time for a national oil change. That is
apparent to anyone who has looked at our national dipstick.

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

Yesterday saw the Associated Press, Agence
France-Press and a Japanese publication
apparently independently reporting Nissan's
plans, but Reuters did not include the mention of
PHEVs, and the company has not yet commented.

http://www.todayonline.com/articles/144405.asp
Nissan to end tie-up in hybrid with Toyota
Posted: 23-Sep-2006 16:05 hrsTime is GMT + 8 hours

Nissan's officials were not immediately available for a comment. — AFP

Rival Japanese carmakers Nissan Motor Co. and
Toyota Motor Corp will end their tie-up in
sharing hybrid car-related technology as Nissan
plans to release its own hybrid models, a report said.
.
Nissan plans to release its independently
produced low-emission and fuel-efficient models
in 2010, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources.
.
Nissan and Toyota agreed in 2002 to work together
on hybrid vehicle developments in a bid to cut
costs and benefit from each others' know-how.
.
But both Nissan and Toyota came to think that the
necessity of the tie-up has reduced with the
rapid growth of markets for
environmentally-friendly hybrid vehicles, helped
by rising fuel costs reflecting high oil prices, it said.
.
Nissan's new compact car models will be equipped
with a lithium-ion battery system and include a
plug-in hybrid vehicle that can be recharged at home, it said.
.
Rival Japanese carmakers Nissan Motor Co. and
Toyota Motor Corp will end their tie-up in
sharing hybrid car-related technology as Nissan
plans to release its own hybrid models, a report said.
.
Nissan plans to release its independently
produced low-emission and fuel-efficient models
in 2010, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources.
.
Nissan and Toyota agreed in 2002 to work together
on hybrid vehicle developments in a bid to cut
costs and benefit from each others' know-how.
.
But both Nissan and Toyota came to think that the
necessity of the tie-up has reduced with the
rapid growth of markets for
environmentally-friendly hybrid vehicles, helped
by rising fuel costs reflecting high oil prices, it said.
.
Nissan's new compact car models will be equipped
with a lithium-ion battery system and include a
plug-in hybrid vehicle that can be recharged at home, it said.

http://www.daily-news.ro/article_detail.php?idarticle=30097
Associated Press Report: Nissan, GM capital alliance unlikely

Auto giants Nissan Motor Co. and General Motors
Corp. are unlikely to form a capital alliance, a
newspaper said Saturday. Nissan will also develop
its own fuel-efficient hybrid cars for introduction in 2010, it said.

Japan's largest newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun,
quoted unnamed officials as saying Nissan is
unlikely to invest in GM because of reluctance on
the part of the U.S. automaker, whose U.S. sales
have shown signs of a recovery following a restructuring program.

GM's employees and labor union have also voiced
opposition to the possible capital linkup with
the Nissan-Renault group, the report said.

Renault owns a 44 percent stake in Nissan, which
in turn holds 15 percent of the French automaker.
Nissan-Renault started talks with GM earlier this
year to explore a possible mega-alliance.

GM could still cooperate with the French-Japanese
group in procuring auto parts and materials, the report said.

Calls to Nissan headquarters in Tokyo went unanswered Saturday.

Separately, the Yomiuri reported that the
Japanese automaker, the country's second biggest,
will develop its own hybrid compact cars, ending
its four-year alliance with Toyota Motor Corp. in the area.

Nissan's hybrids will feature a lithium ion
battery that could be recharged with a power
plug, and the company expects to begin selling
the first models in 2010, the report said.
That would mark a change in strategy by the chief
executive of Renault and Nissan, Carlos Ghosn,
who has been unenthusiastic about developing
hybrid cars, calling them a niche technology. But
sales of Toyota's Prius gas-electric hybrids have been booming.

Nissan has been making solid profits, but
recently acknowledged it was selling fewer
vehicles around the world because of a dearth of new models.

Group net profit for the April-June quarter
jumped 4.2 percent to 748 million euros from
105.7 billion yen in the same period a year ago, the automaker said in July.

Quarterly sales by value also rose 3.1 percent to
15 billion euros, but the company sold fewer
vehicles during the quarter at 826,000 vehicles,
down six percent from a year earlier.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/20060923TDY01006.htm
Daily Yomiuri Online
The Yomiuri Shimbun (Sep. 23, 2006)

   Nissan to end Toyota hybrid tie-up

Nissan Motor Co. will develop a new hybrid
vehicle technology on its own, which would end a
joint agreement with Toyota Motor Corp., sources said Friday.

The independently produced low-emission and
fuel-efficient models will be released on 2010, the sources said.

In the wake of rising oil prices, demand for
hybrid models has grown rapidly, leading Nissan
to reconsider its previous stance of cooperating
with Toyota on hybrid developments, the sources said.

The new compact car models will be equipped with
a lithium-ion battery system and include a
plug-in hybrid vehicle that can be recharged at home.

Compared with nickel-hydrogen batteries, which
Toyota and Honda Motor Co. have used, the
lithium-ion battery has more capacity and can be recharged more quickly.

Nissan and Toyota agreed in 2002 to work together
on hybrid vehicle developments. Toyota's hybrid
systems will be used in about 100,000 units of
Nissan's Altima Hybrid model, which the automaker
plans to put on the U.S. market early next year.

However, since Nissan now intends to mass-produce
its own models, it is considering using Toyota's
systems on just the Altima model sold in the United States.

Toyota likely will agree to Nissan's decision. A
representative for Toyota said it would not
provide its hybrid systems to Nissan for other
models than the Altima unless Nissan requested it to do so.

Nissan had not embarked on full-scale mass
production of hybrid cars since it wanted to wait
and see which types of low-emission cars would
come to dominate the market. The maker has
released only hybrid minivans on a limited scale,
but as hybrid car sales by Toyota and Honda have
grown in Japan and the United States, Nissan
decided it would lose market share unless it
entered the market with its own models.

Toyota initially considered the joint venture as
the best way to promote the use of hybrid
vehicles, going as far as to provide its systems
to a rival to help hybrid models become more mainstream.

With Nissan showing a serious intent to
mass-produce hybrid cars on its own, competition
among carmakers over developing low-emission vehicles likely will intensify.

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
               http://www.bettah.org
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy has just
released a report on the benefits of PHEVs. In the accompanying press
release, co-author Theresa Langer says, "Plug-ins represent a major
step toward the electrification of the transportation sector, a
transition that has tremendous potential to help solve some big problems."

Unlike most other reports, this one compares PHEVs not to internal
combustion engine (ICE) cars, but to today's (part-of-the-way-there
non-plug-in) hybrids. It finds benefits even in this comparison that
analysts may see as significant or minor.  We're expecting other
reports this fall to go far in answering the remaining objections
about how much better hybrids are than ICE cars and hybrids, but
these findings of a 15% CO2 reduction compared to a hybrid on today's
national (half-coal) grid, are already helpful. Significantly, this
report comes from a group that has reserved judgment on PHEVs, and
whose work has been cited by some analysts and organizations that
remain skeptical about electric transportation. (Many are reluctant
to factor in the likelihood that the power grid will get cleaner as
renewable portfolio standards and other requirements emerge  --
leading to the point that, while ICE cars get dirtier as they get
older, electric cars get cleaner, because electricity gets cleaner.)

The report cautions against overselling PHEVs' benefits, especially
the 100+MPG message. PHEV advocates make serious efforts to
communicate whenever possible that it's "100+MPG of gasoline, plus
electricity."). While it is not yet possible to predict the
performance of production PHEVs, based on my own daily experience, it
appears the report underestimates what's possible from driving at
"mixed speeds" -- at both mid-range 35-55 MPH and highway speeds.

In contrast to co-author James Kliesch's comment that  "
'electric-then-gasoline' depiction of plug-in operation is not
realistic and has contributed to overstatements of the fuel savings
potential of plug-ins in the popular media," here's what I've been
getting in "mixed-mode" driving: Since filling my car 13 days ago,
I've driven 538.86 miles on 4.158 gallons, achieving 129.5 MPG. And
at <http://www.calcars.org/photos.html> you can see a photograph
taken September 1 showing I had driven 949.75 miles on 9.365 gallons,
achieving 101.4 miles. (This even included a 175-mile round-trip from
the Bay Area to Sacramento where I drove mostly as standard hybrid.)
We'll have more data soon...

The chart cited in the Christian Science Monitor news story that
follows the press release below includes ACEEE data showing a $3,500
long-term incremental cost for a 40-mile all-electric range battery,
which matches up to statements by PHEV scientists, economists and
advocates. (The ACEEE's press release contains a link to the full
report in PDF format.)

PRESS RELEASE
Plug-Ins Promising -- But Better Batteries, Cleaner Power Plants Essential

Washington, D.C. (September 21, 2006): Plug-in hybrid vehicles could
contribute greatly to reducing automobile oil consumption and
emissions, but reaching those goals requires major progress in key
areas. According to a report released today by the American Council
for an Energy-Efficient Economy, the environmental and economic
appeal of plug-in hybrid vehicles will depend heavily upon cleaner
power sources and further battery advances. The report, "Plug-In
Hybrids: An Environmental and Economic Outlook," examines the
benefits of plug-ins relative to today's hybrids.  It finds that
greenhouse gas emissions reductions associated with a plug-in powered
by today's electric grid would be about 15% on average across the
nation, ranging from 32% using California electricity to zero using
Upper Midwest electricity.

Plug-ins' oil savings could be quite large. Battery size and cost
rise steeply with the amount of fuel savings, however, suggesting
that plug-ins with modest electric-only range will appear
first.  According to report co-author James Kliesch, the
"electric-then-gasoline" depiction of plug-in operation is not
realistic and has contributed to overstatements of the fuel savings
potential of plug-ins in the popular media. "Achieving adequate
battery lifetimes and minimizing battery costs will require a vehicle
control logic that turns on the internal combustion engine when extra
power is needed, even within the 'electric-only' range of the
vehicle," said Kliesch.  The ACEEE report estimates fuel savings
relative to today's hybrids of 30% for a plug-in with a 20-mile
electric-only range and 50% for a 40-mile range.

With high volumes and a drop in nickel prices, the cost of the
nickel-metal hydride batteries used in hybrids at present could fall
quite dramatically.  To reach an appropriate balance of size, weight,
and power for a long-range plug-in, however, researchers' bets are on
lithium-ion batteries, which still need technological breakthroughs
to reach commercial production for plug-in applications.  Projections
of long-term costs for plug-in batteries imply that the incremental
cost of a plug-in could match that of a hybrid today.

"Plug-ins represent a major step toward the electrification of the
transportation sector, a transition that has tremendous potential to
help solve some big problems," said report co-author Therese Langer.
"But realizing this potential means maintaining an all-out effort on
advanced batteries, cleaning up electric power generators, and
adopting policies that drive efficiency technologies by requiring a
sustained ramp-up of average fuel economy."

"Plug-In Hybrids: An Environmental and Economic Outlook" is available
for free download at
<http://aceee.org/pubs/t061.pdf>http://aceee.org/pubs/t061.pdf or a
hard copy can be purchased for $16 plus $5 postage and handling from
ACEEE Publications, 1001 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 801,
Washington, D.C. 20036-5525, phone: 202-429-0063, fax: 202-429-0193,
e-mail: aceee_publications@....

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy is an
independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing energy
efficiency as a means of promoting both economic prosperity and
environmental protection. For information about ACEEE and its
programs, publications, and conferences, visit
<http://aceee.org>http://aceee.org.

Contact: Jim Kliesch, 202-429-8873, x721
Therese Langer, 202-429-8873, x724
Media Contact: Glee Murray, 202-429-0063


A reality check on plug-in hybrids
Vehicles that draw power from the electricity grid offer uneven
benefits, a new study finds.
By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the September 25, 2006 edition
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0925/p03s02-usgn.html

There are hybrid vehicles, whose gasoline/electric engines get great
mileage. And then there are "plug-in" hybrids, only about a dozen of
them in the US, which have been modified to store more electricity in
beefier batteries by plugging in at night to the electricity grid.

Felix Kramer's "plug-in" Toyota Prius gets about double the mileage
of a conventional Prius - about 100 miles per gallon. To him, it is
the holy grail of cars, zapping pollution, oil imports, and high pump
prices all at once.

So, should the whole country jump on the band wagon?

A groundbreaking study released last week sounds a cautionary note to
the consumer. Plug-ins do burn less gasoline than regular hybrids -
and gobs less than gasoline-only vehicles - but the high cost of
their bigger battery packs will probably neutralize even significant
savings at the pump, according to a report by the American Council
for an Energy-Efficient America (ACEEE).

The study is the first to compare the performance - and the costs -
of two hybrid technologies: the conventional versus the plug-in. It
comes even as President Bush, energy-security hawks, and many
environmentalists are talking up plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles
(PHEVs). Dozens of cities, too, have signed on to promote a new
Plug-in Partners program, and Toyota and other automakers say they're
working on the technology.

"We want government policy based on reality, not overstating what
[plug-in technology] can achieve and when," says report coauthor
Therese Langer, ACEEE's transportation program director. "We don't
want what happened with the hydrogen hype to happen with plug-in
hybrids, too," she adds, referring to optimistic assessments of a
timetable for shifting to a hydrogen-powered vehicle fleet.

Cleaner skies, in some places

Environmental impacts of PHEV technology, for instance, would vary
dramatically by region - benefiting some areas but not others, the
report found.

For a plug-in owner in California, where most electricity on the grid
is generated by low-pollution facilities, driving a PHEV might cut
emissions of carbon dioxide by one-third compared with driving a
regular hybrid.

But if the same PHEV were charged in the Midwest, where coal-fired
power plants supply the electricity, reduction of CO2 emissions would
be nil. Nitrous-oxide emissions (which form smog) would fall
slightly, but sulfur-dioxide emissions (which contribute to acid
rain) would quadruple.

Still, environmental gains are possible.

Plug-ins would chop CO2 emissions by 15 percent on a national
average, compared with conventional hybrid cars, the ACEEE report
found. At the same time, the plug-in would emit 157 percent more
sulfur-dioxide pollution. The need, plug-in proponents say, is for
policies that would clean up the electricity grid so that PHEV
technology supplies cleaner skies along with energy independence.

Pricey batteries

The cost of nickel-metal hybrid batteries may also limit the appeal
of plug-in hybrids - at least in the short run.

Today's conventional hybrids command a premium price - $2,000 to
$4,000 more than their nonhybrid counterparts - and their owners will
recover that extra cost in about three years, assuming $3-a-gallon
gasoline and 12,000 miles a year of driving, the report found. (Graphic)

For the plug-in, the payback period is longer - 6.4 years for a
vehicle that can travel 40 miles exclusively on stored electricity -
even under the more optimistic scenario in which battery prices fall
sharply, the ACEEE report estimates.

Others, however, say that PHEV technology is crucial for America's
energy security and that mass production will bring battery prices down.

"This is an important technology from an energy-security standpoint,"
says Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis
of Global Security, a Washington-based energy-security think tank.

Even so, he agrees that expectations have become a bit overheated.
"It's true this technology isn't going to be suitable for everyone," he says,

Felix Kramer's souped-up Prius

As for Mr. Kramer, who is apparently the first of about a dozen
people nationwide to have acquired a plug-in hybrid Toyota Prius, the
ACEEE report gives him not a moment's pause. Cofounder of
CalCars.org, a group promoting plug-in technology, he keeps close
track of his mileage and now commutes to work powered almost solely
by stored electricity. On a recent 450-mile run, at mixed speeds and
terrain, he got 125 miles to the gallon.

Now he's installed solar panels on his car's roof to charge the
battery and lower his costs even further.

"In the real world, battery reliability [will improve] and costs are
going to come down fast," he says. "My real-world experience tells me
they're understating the benefit. I'm doing a lot better than the report."


--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
               http://www.bettah.org
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

While we've had several Bay Area localities
endorse Plug-In Partners, the press release
below, from Plug-In Bay Area (see our coverage of
its launch event at
<http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/478.html>
and
<http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/501.html>),
reports on the first real "soft order".

For Immediate Release  September 22,
2006

MARIN COUNTY FIRST IN BAY AREA TO ORDER PLUG-IN HYBRIDS

SAN FRANCISCO – Plug-In Bay Area, a recently
launched initiative aimed at putting Plug-In
Hybrid Electric Vehicles on Bay Area roads, today
announced that Marin County will be the first Bay
Area municipality to place a soft fleet order for
22 of the vehicles. Plug-in Hybrids, which are
capable of 100+ miles per gallon, add battery
power and a plug to a conventional hybrid while
retaining a flexible fuel gas tank. This allows
for all-electric, zero-emissions driving locally,
and the ability to shift to gas for longer distances.

Plug-In Bay Area is the newest chapter of Plug-In
Partners, a national grassroots initiative
intended to demonstrate to automakers the
burgeoning demand for plug-in vehicles via “soft
orders,” which are declarations of intent to
purchase plug-ins once they are commercially
available. Locally, the cities of San Francisco,
Berkeley and Alameda have passed resolutions
supporting the development and commercialization
of these vehicles, but Marin County is the first to place an order.

“Marin County should be applauded for taking the
first step toward a cleaner, healthier Bay Area,”
said Rainforest Action Network’s Jodie van Horn,
coordinator of Plug-In Bay Area. “Automakers
should take this initial Bay Area soft order –
and others like it being placed around the
country – as a challenge to begin building
plug-in hybrid vehicles on a mass scale. We
encourage the rest of the Bay Area to follow
Marin’s example so we can finally get these cars
on the road and declare our independence from oil.”

“This is a technology whose time has arrived,”
said Susan Adams, president of the Marin County
Board of Supervisors, which passed a resolution
supporting plug-ins on August 22. “Plug-in
hybrids get upwards of 100 miles per gallon, they
emit fewer pollutants, and they can ease our
dependence on oil. Now we just need the manufacturers to start building them.”

The goal of Plug-In Bay Area is to bring the Bay
Area and America closer to energy independence by
implementing gasoline-optional plug-in
transportation technology. Plug-in hybrids, which
combine liquid and electric fuel, offer an
exciting and timely solution to the nation’s
dependence on foreign oil, high gasoline costs,
poor air quality, and climate change. By building
demand for plug-ins via soft orders, advocates
are pressuring the auto industry to make the vehicles commercially available.

Regional Plug-In Bay Area organizers include
Rainforest Action Network, Bluewater Network,
PG&E, CalCars, and Plug-In America.

###
Sam Haswell
Communications Director
Rainforest Action Network
(415) 398-4404 x319

Jodie Van Horn
Coordinator
Plug-In Bay Area
Rainforest Action Network
415-398-4404 x309


--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

This week, Ron Gremban and I and many advocates of electric
transportation solutions. will all be in Sacramento for the important
California Air Resources Board's ZEV Technology Symposium. Here the
ARB re-evaluates the basis for its strategies to move toward Zero
Emissions Vehicles.  It started today with introductions and a day on
hydrogen; tomorrow it wraps up Hydrogen, then moves on to updates
from DaimlerChrysler, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. Tuesday
afternoon-Wednesday afternoon is a survey of Battery Technology.
Wednesday ends with topics on Battery Electric and Plug-in Hybrid
Electric Vehicles. More information on the event and PDFs of most of
the presentations are available now, starting from
<http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/symposium/symposium.htm>, where
you'll also find a link to live webcasts of the event.

A number of people from Plug In America and the Electric Auto
Association, as well as two presentations on Prius Conversions (one
by EnergyCS, one by Sacramento Municipal Utility District) come near
the end of day three (Wednesday). CalCars had submitted proposed
testimony, but our submission was not accepted. After much
back-and-forth, we've been promised a spot at the start of the final
Open Comment period. You can see our 8-pages for our testimony at
<http://www.calcars.org/calcars-arb-zev-kramer.pdf>. We address
technical and experiential topics that we don't expect others will cover.

Also Tuesday, John Davi of CalCars will appear along with JB Straubel
of Tesla Motors at Stanford. (This event when announced included my
participation, but I can't be in two places at once.)

Details on both events at <http://www.calcars.org/events.html>.

We've augmented our photos section of the CalCars website, now
divided into a "Best of" page, then "People & Places," "PHEV Tech,"
"Scenic Shots" and "PHEVs in D.C." This replaces our attempt at a
photoblog. Media can download high-resolution versions of most photos.

We're also taking this opportunity to correct the report in the
Christian Science Monitor (see
<http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/526.html>) that my Prius has
gotten a solar rooftop....CSM will provide a print and online correction.

This is also an exciting week in Sacramento and globally)for another
reason, with the expected signing into law by the Governor of the
much-lauded, pioneering AB32, The California Global Warming Solutions
Act of 2006.

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

Bob Lutz, the ultimate auto insider, is now the
highest- level executive at General Motors to
acknowledge what we've been hearing: that they
are working on PHEVs.Lutz is GM Vice Chairman,
Product Development, and Chairman, GM North
America, His illustrious background includes:
Vice Chairman, President, and Chief Operating
Officer at General lMotors, Chairman of Ford
Europe, Ford Motors Board Member, Executive Vice
President of Sales at BMW. For his bio,
see  <http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/archives/2005/01/lutz_biography_1.html>

On GM's blog (below), he said on Sept 20, "We are
also studying plug-in hybrids, and will have more
to say about those soon. The whole key there is
the development of significantly improved battery
technology. But rest assured I truly believe that
electric-drive vehicles have a real future in
this country and around the world; the only
question is the nature of the power source or sources.

And in an interview published a few days later
(also below), he said,  the goal is not fuel-cell
cars but "an all-electric architecture where all
forms of engines as well as fuel cells can be
used".... "The thinking is that the hydrogen
infrastructure might not arrive, but we have an
architecture that we could use for all
engines..... "The real issue is petroleum," "and
the real objective is electric drive, whether
it's powered with a fuel cell or a lithium-ion
battery. Hell, we just want to get out from under the oil companies."

We'll be reporting about much news on PHEVs from
the Air Resources Board's ZEVTechnology
Symposium. But the other story at that event was
the continuing struggles by many companies to
overcome the economic and technological obstacles
that make fuel cell cars an always-far-off dream.
It appears that Lutz is acknowledging that after
sinking over $1 billion into their development,
GM is  "not putting all of our eggs in the
hydrogen basket. It’s going to take time to make
the hydrogen economy a reality, and we have
several other alternatives in the works in the
meantime, beginning with the expansion of our E85
offerings, and the expansion of our hybrid lineup."

These statements are surrounded by continuing
insistence that they are committed to their
hydrogen program. But it no longer appears that
projecting an evolution at GM is simply wishful
thinking. Lutz recognizes  that a fuel cell car
is an electrically-powered vehicle, if fuel cells
turn out to be less economically viable than
batteries to store electricity, perhaps he will
embrace the PHEV that appears to him now as a
fall-back and a consolation prize.

http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/archives/2006/09/the_moon_shot.html#more
Cars & TrucksThe “Moon Shot”
By Bob Lutz
GM Vice Chairman
Posted by Lutz at September 20, 2006 11:22 AM

You may have heard by now that last week I told
media assembled at our press event in Southern
California that GM has big plans for fuel cell
technology. The journalists were on hand for
their first drive of our landmark Sequel fuel
cell vehicle. I told them that this technology
was our equivalent of a moon shot and that I’d
recommend that we put fuel cell vehicles into production as soon as possible.

That’s all true. I think we should and will do
exactly that. But any speculation as to exactly
when we will do it and exactly how much it will
cost is just that: pure speculation.

What we’ve announced so far is this: we are now
launching a fleet of 100-plus vehicles to
demonstrate our fuel cell capabilities and raise
national awareness of the potential of the
hydrogen economy. Assuming we can maintain the
great progress we’ve made hitting the cost
targets of our fuel cell program, the next step
would be about a 1000-vehicle fleet in the
2010-2012 time frame. Then if cost and
infrastructure barriers were removed, or at least
significantly reduced, we’d look at more
significant numbers later in the decade.

The point is, this all sounds like science
fiction right now, but I assure you it isn’t.
Most journalists were duly impressed with what
they drove, declaring the driving experience to
be just like “a normal car.” And that’s the goal.
All along, we’ve staunchly maintained that we
wouldn’t produce fuel cell vehicles unless they
matched or bettered the performance, handling and
comfort of internal combustion-powered cars and
trucks. Well, we think we’re just about there.

Our goal is to be the first manufacturer to put 1
million fuel cell vehicles on the road —
profitably — in the global automotive market. The
key word there is “global.” Like I said last
week, China may be better equipped to switch to
the hydrogen economy than the U.S., since they’re
significantly less developed and would have a far
easier time of it. To really get the ball rolling
in the U.S., automakers, suppliers, government
and the energy companies have to work together
and work quickly. There’s simply no other way.

Let it also be known that we’re not putting all
of our eggs in the hydrogen basket. It’s going to
take time to make the hydrogen economy a reality,
and we have several other alternatives in the
works in the meantime, beginning with the
expansion of our E85 offerings, and the expansion
of our hybrid lineup, as you know. That will be
highlighted by the addition of our two-mode hybrid full-size SUVs next year.

We are also studying plug-in hybrids, and will
have more to say about those soon. The whole key
there is the development of significantly
improved battery technology. But rest assured I
truly believe that electric-drive vehicles have a
real future in this country and around the world;
the only question is the nature of the power source or sources.

We’ll have architectures that will be flexible
enough to accommodate a number of different sources.

And yes, believe it or not, this really is Bob
Lutz talking! We are sitting on the cusp of an
explosion of new technology that will change the
automotive industry like nothing since its very
invention. I never would’ve believed it, but I
must say I’m excited to be a part of it.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/main.jhtml?xml=/motoring/2006/09/23/nosplit/\
mfchev23.xml

Who's killing the fuel cell?
The Telegraph UK  23/09/2006)

The race to market the first hydrogen fuel-cell
car is speeding up, so why is General Motors
slowing down? Andrew English reports from the driving seat of the new GM Sequel

Bob Lutz is having a fine old day. Shaded from
the hazy sun in a luxurious pavilion facing the
rolling Pacific Ocean, General Motors' vice
president of product development leans back in
his mahogany steamer, surveys the beach and puffs
on a fat Monte Cristo. This is Camp Pendleton, a
sprawling training base for the US Marine Corps,
just down the coast from Los Angeles. The Marines
are Bob's old mob; he was a pilot.

CAPTION: Man and (green machine): Andrew and the GM Sequel

"Huh - 60-year-old technology," the giant,
silver-haired septuagenarian car guy growls as a
huge twin-bladed Chinook helicopter screams
overhead. Bob has Googled himself a spotters'
list of the latest Marine firepower and armed
himself with a telescope as big as his forearm.
The Hollywood Marines drive past in three roaring
LAV-25s that drown out all thought and
conversation; Bob's Aviators sweep the beach.

A slighter and more retiring man sitting beside
Bob leans almost excessively forward. This is Dr
Larry Burns, GM's vice president of research and
development and strategic planning. This should
have been Larry's show, but Larry is profoundly
hard of hearing and, in this racket, he cannot
hear a thing. He doesn't need to, however, as Bob
is answering everything today. Bob has taken over
and one wonders who chose this venue under
clattering skies to launch the Sequel.

After all, it was Larry's department that created
the hydrogen fuel-cell, drive-by-wire sports
utility vehicle we are here to drive, as well as
its 2002 predecessors, the Hy-Wire and the
fantastically innovative Autonomy "skateboard".

These were, and to some extent still are, the
absolute acme of hydrogen fuel-cell powered
transport. As Christopher Borroni-Bird, Sequel's
British programme director, explained back in
2002: "Electric power means a new sort of car,
built in modern factories, supplied by high-tech,
low-cost suppliers. GM is creating a new world order of personal transport."

The idea behind Autonomy was that all the major
functions in a vehicle would be controlled by
electrical wire, including brakes, steering and
of course the drive system, delivered via tiny
motors in the wheels. There would be no direct
connection between brake pedal and brakes,
steering wheel and wheels or accelerator and
engine. Driver inputs would be interpreted and
controlled by computer, and functions such as
four-wheel steering and braking, as well as
anti-lock, anti-skid, traction control and
emergency brake assist, would be simply a line of
code in the car's electronic brain. The
skateboard-like chassis contained all the main
vehicle functions and could be fitted with a
range of demountable bodies, allowing you to have
an SUV on holiday, a sports car at weekends and an MPV during the week.

Far fetched? Futuristic? You bet. This was
thinking of the highest order, perpetrated by
Larry Burns's brilliant 500-strong team of
engineers, scientists and thinkers. Even in the
heady and profitable days of 2002, it also
offered a way out of the mature, smoke-stack
industry problems of the motor makers. This week
these reached a nadir for Ford, with the news
that the House of Henry could lose as much as $9
billion (£4.8 billion) in 2006, while GM is also
in severe financial trouble. Rumours abound that
the two are talking about a merger.

The Autonomy project offered a chance for the car
industry - and especially GM - to reinvent itself
as a modern, low-polluting, lights-off factory
operation. But that was then and this is now. As
Lutz explains, Sequel is now just a means to an
end, and that end is not fuel-cell cars but "an
all-electric architecture where all forms of
engines as well as fuel cells can be used".

He explains: "The thinking is that the hydrogen
infrastructure might not arrive, but we have an
architecture that we could use for all engines.

"We are fixing [parts supplier] Delphi and saving
costs of $2 billion a year. We are reducing our
healthcare and pension expenditure and our
workforce. Our ongoing fixed costs will be lower
by $9 billion a year and that gives a lot of
daylight. Some of that will go into increasing
profits, but we are more than aware that our
20-year decline is partly a result of not allocating money to the business."

Lutz doesn't rule out hybrids, but says GM is
more than impressed with the performance of
lithium-ion batteries, which offer fast,
high-power, "memory-free" recharging. "The real
issue is petroleum," he says, "and the real
objective is electric drive, whether it's powered
with a fuel cell or a lithium-ion battery. Hell,
we just want to get out from under the oil companies."

CAPTION: The GM Sequel Electric dream: the
Sequel's range, speed and acceleration compare well with conventional cars

Lutz blames the American government for GM's
disenchantment with its world-beating fuel cell.
"The US government is dragging its feet over the
hydrogen infrastructure," he says, adding that GM
remains committed to producing one million
fuel-cell cars profitably - but that might be in
China, for Chinese markets. "China is building
loads of nuclear power stations," he says, "and
we know that nuclear can produce almost
fossil-free hydrogen and the Chinese government
is really keen to get involved."

Apart from this obvious cooling on the primacy of
fuel-cell research, you have to boggle at the
thought of GM returning to all-battery technology
after the debacle of the EV-1, a lead-acid
battery-powered car produced between 1996 and
1999. More than 1,110 of these sleek, 80mph
coupés were built and 800 were leased out to
customers, but if you took away the subsidies
from the US government, each car would have cost GM just under $1 million.

Eventually the company recalled and crushed most
of them. The EV-1 was the subject of this year's
nonsensical conspiracy movie, Who Killed The
Electric Car? But listening to Lutz it is hard
not to disagree with Wally E Ripple, a research
engineer interviewed in the film, who suggested
that because there is a trillion dollars' worth
of oil still left in the ground, representing
over 100 trillion dollars' worth of business for
car makers and oil companies, there is little
incentive to develop a viable electric (or fuel-cell) car.

Perhaps he's right. For all the current fixation
with Peak Oil and America's "addiction to oil",
no one has done a trustworthy, well-by-well audit
of what oil is left under the ground, so no one
really knows. This week, oil prices started to
fall to about $60 a barrel (£32.70 for 35
gallons) from their July high of $78, and the
heads of Exxon and Saudi Aramco, the oil company
with the world's largest output, made calming
noises about the state of current stocks.

They claimed, respectively, that the end of oil
was nowhere in sight and that at current
production rates there was a century's worth of
crude left. Well they would say that, wouldn't
they, but as long as we have no way of verifying
what stocks remain, their opinions are at least as valid as any other.

Some Western analysts might argue that Bob Lutz
is right, and that, however much oil is left, we
should eke out supplies by using a mix of hybrid,
electric and fuel-cell power. But there are other
issues. Reversing climate change will require a
reduction in the burning of fossil fuel and/or
the sequestration of carbon dioxide. Energy
security has become more of an issue since Russia
shut off its natural gas supplies to Ukraine in a
price row earlier this year, and since Osama bin
Laden vowed to attack Western oil installations.

And the rules of the game are changing. Since
April 2003, the California Air Resources Board
(Carb) has given car makers the option of meeting
part of their mandatory zero-emissions targets by
producing fuel-cell vehicles. Each company has to
produce a sales-weighted number of fuel-cell
vehicles to contribute to a total of 250 in 2008,
rising to 2,500 between 2009 and 2011, 25,000
between 2012 and 2014, and 50,000 between 2015
and 2017. Battery vehicles can be used to replace
up to 50 per cent of that fuel-cell requirement.
It's a tall order and to comply GM is having to
send 62 of the 100 fuel-cell Equinox SUV test
vehicles also unveiled this week, but the
American giant is late to the party. Rivals
Toyota and Honda already have large fleets of
fuel-cell vehicles on test and Takeo Fukui,
Honda's chief executive, is committed to putting
a fuel-cell car on sale within five years.
DaimlerChrysler has a test fleet of more than 100
fuel-cell vehicles and there's even a
DaimlerChrysler fuel-cell bus in London, running
on route RV1 between Covent Garden and London Bridge.

GM is falling behind, and when you are behind you
can no longer dictate the terms of the debate.
All the good things that GM was hoping might fall
into its lap as a result of its fuel-cell
research could be up for grabs once again.

Driving the Sequel

The market for family-sized, SUV crossovers is
among America's fastest growing, and it's no
surprise to find that Toyota's fuel-cell concept,
Ford's hybrid Escape and GM's Sequel are aimed at
this sector, where the potential savings can do most good.

CAPTION: Bob Lutz: 'Hell, we just want to get out from under the oil companies'

The first thing that strikes you about the Sequel
is the number of radiators on the front grille.
Fuel cells and their control electronics like to
operate at about 80 degrees centigrade, and there
are a lot of control electronics on this vehicle
- five complete systems, in fact. Sequel has twin
42-volt systems for the steering and braking,
plus the high-voltage electrical drive system and
twin 12-volt circuits for all the subsidiary functions.

It is powered by GM's own 98bhp fuel cell, with a
87bhp lithium-ion battery pack. It is capable of
about 300 miles between refuelling stops and,
with a top speed of 90mph and 0-60mph
acceleration in 10sec, performance is respectable.

There are three liquid-cooled electric motors:
the 87bhp three-phase unit in the front that
drives both front wheels via a reduction gear,
and two 22bhp Italian-made wheel motors, each of
which drives a rear wheel directly. They weigh
33lb each, a considerable reduction since we
first encountered them three years ago, but are
still too heavy to put into the front wheel hubs
without adversely affecting the handling.

About 17.6lb of gaseous hydrogen is carried at
10,000psi in three spun-carbon storage tanks
under the floor. It's the hydrogen strorage that
has failed the project's aims, as it is too
expensive and heavy. We will return to this topic
in the near future, but suffice it to say that
Larry Burns admits that while the fuel cell can
provide power at about $12-15 per kilowatt, the
complex hydrogen tanks push that figure well
beyond the total system cost target of $50 per kilowatt.

Like the Hy-Wire , the Sequel has no direct
connection between the steering and the wheels.
Unlike the Hy-Wire, the Sequel has four-wheel
steering. In fact the Hy-Wire was horrible to
drive, with poor calibration of its SKF-sourced
steering. Changing supplier (to Visteon) seems to
have paid dividends, as the Sequel's steering is
well-weighted and accurate, if lacking in
feedback from the wheels. The rear wheels
reverse-steer at very low speeds to aid parking
and steer with the fronts to decrease the turning circle.

Like all electric-drive vehicles, the Sequel has
a huge amount of torque and storms away from a
standstill. The electronics apportion current to
the rear motors when starting off and when
slippage is detected, so it feels very sure-footed.

Noise, so much of an issue on rival fuel cells,
is confined to the high-pitched whine of the
current inverter and a slight rumble from the
front motors; the rears seem to run almost
silently. The brakes, which on the initial push
merely turn the motors into charging units, feel
strong and the pedal feel is progressive.

A Soccer Mum's runabout par excellence, the
Sequel is quiet and refined and emits only water vapour.

CAPTION: The GM Sequel  Future car: the Sequel's
steering is well-weighted and accurate, if lacking in feedback from the wheels

It is a great deal more attractive than Honda's
FCX and its drive system is somewhat
awe-inspiring, but as Bob Lutz says, the Sequel
has become merely "a test bed for a lot of technical integration".

Whatever that is, it is not the blueprint for the
future that this amazing fuel-cell car once was.

Deep thoughts

Is a hydrogen fuel infrastructure too expensive?

No, according to Byron McCormick, a former Los
Alamos US National Laboratory scientist. "To get
a hydrogen refuelling point to within two miles
of over 70 per cent of the US population and
every 25 miles on the freeway would cost around
$12 billion," he says. "To put that into
perspective, the creation of the great railroads
of America (in 1880s' dollar values) cost $5
billion. Eisenhower's Interstate building
programme in the 1950s (in current dollar values)
cost $163 billion. At its height in the 1960s,
the US government was spending $17 billion a year
on its space programme. The delayed Alaskan
pipeline will cost at least $6 billion and in the
coming years the oil industry estimates that it
will need to spend some $200 billion simply to secure its infrastructure."

Are hydrogen fuel cells too long in coming?

No, according to one GM engineer. "The first
automobiles were introduced into the US in the
1890s and it took 55 years for 25 per cent of the
population to reject the horse and adopt the car.
To get VCRs into 25 per cent of US homes took 44
years. The equivalent figure for microwaves was
30 years, for personal computers 16 years and for
cellphones 13 years. Technology adoption is
getting faster but it still takes time. You'd
better be in it for the long haul or you ain't gonna make it."

With oil prices falling again and conventional
cars as cheap as they've ever been, why worry about hydrogen and fuel cells?

"Hydrogen will change the way we think about and
do everything," says Dr Larry Burns of GM. "If
you take the revenue of the 50 largest companies
involved in power production and transportation,
you are talking about $1.8 trillion a year; just
think how much disruption there will be when this
happens. If you sit on the sidelines and you
don't seek to be involved in creating this
change, you will not have access to this
technology, and that could be a very dangerous place to be."


--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
               http://www.bettah.org
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

This story will appear in the Sunday, October 1
NY Times automotive section under "Green Tech"

Hybrids With a Power Cord: Plug-In Vans Put to the Test
By JIM MOTAVALLI
http://select.nytimes.com/preview/2006/10/01/automobiles/1154648126188.html

ARE there plug-in hybrid vehicles in America’s
future? Such hybrids could travel 10 to 20
additional miles on battery power alone, but
until recently automakers have said — more or
less unanimously — that it was not practical to
add a larger battery pack and plug-in chargers to
hybrid vehicles because of the added weight, complexity and cost.

The public is already confused about hybrids,
they say, with many people still believing that
these cars (whose batteries are charged by their
internal-combustion engines) need to be plugged
in. So now hybrids really will have a power cord?

Maybe, says DaimlerChrysler. The company recently
showed in New York the first vehicle in its small
test fleet of Dodge Sprinter delivery vans with
plug-in-hybrid powertrains. The Sprinters can
drive 20 miles on batteries alone, powered by a
70-kilowatt electric motor. The three Sprinters
currently in the United States (built in Germany
with either diesel or gasoline engines) are the
vanguard concept vehicles in a four-truck fleet;
another three dozen will enter service around the world.

This does not necessarily mean that
DaimlerChrysler will make plug-in production
Sprinters for sale, but the company appears to be warming to the concept.

Other companies are mulling the idea, too. Ford
Motor’s chairman, William Clay Ford Jr., said in
May that his company was “keenly looking at” the
technology. At Toyota, Dave Hermance, executive
engineer for advanced technology vehicles,
confirmed that the company has started a research
and development program for plug-ins. “But we
believe the batteries are not ready for production,” he added.

According to a Bloomberg News report in June,
General Motors is also developing a plug-in
hybrid. Even Google.org, a charitable for-profit
company set up by the popular search engine
provider, said it would create its own plug-in system.

A June report by AllianceBernstein, an investment
management firm in New York, entitled “The
Emergence of Hybrid Vehicles,” concluded that
“Plug-in hybrid vehicles are likely to arrive as
an extension of current hybrid technology.” The
fuel-efficiency gains, the report said, “would be
enormous for those people who typically drive only short distances each day.”

Plug-ins, like all hybrids, excel in stop-and-go
duty. And their ability to make those runs on
batteries alone makes them ideal for the delivery
tasks envisioned for the Sprinter project.

The Electric Power Research Institute, a trade
association for utilities, estimates that a
plug-in hybrid would consume 2,000 to 2,500
kilowatt-hours of grid electricity annually. So
wouldn't vehicles like the plug-in hybrid
Sprinter simply transfer their pollution source
from the tailpipe to the smokestack of a coal-burning power plant?

That depends on the source of electric power,
according to a report released last month by the
American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy,
a nonprofit energy policy group. The council
concluded that a plug-in version of the Toyota
Prius could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by a
third compared with today’s Prius hybrid, but
only if its batteries were charged with
California electricity — generated mainly from relatively clean sources.

“One of the key determinants is whether the
electricity is generated using coal,” Jim
Kliesch, a co-author of the report, said in an
interview. The report says that in a part of the
Midwest dominated by coal-burning power plants, a
plug-in Prius would generate 1 percent more
carbon dioxide. “Our position is that overselling
plug-ins to policy makers or to John Q. Public
has the potential of causing disenchantment with
the technology,” Mr. Kliesch said.

But the plug-in concept has long been championed
by environmentalists and green-minded
entrepreneurs, some of whom have added battery
packs and chargers to existing hybrids like the
Prius and the Ford Escape. On short commuting
runs, these cars wouldn't need to start their
gasoline engines, allowing their champions to
claim very high potential economy figures. But
some homemade plug-in hybrids have had problems
adapting to the software of the cars’ sophisticated on-board computers.

“This DaimlerChrysler introduction is the
beginning of the automakers’ fulfilling our
dreams,” said Felix Kramer, a founder of
CalCars.org, which has championed plug-in hybrids
and helped build prototypes. “It’s very encouraging.”

The van of dreams is a conventional-looking
Sprinter, familiar to Americans as a tall Dodge
or Freightliner utility vehicle used as a
passenger bus and, without rear seats, as a
delivery truck. In Europe, it is badged as a
Mercedes-Benz. Departures from factory
specifications include a plug-in recharging port
on the right side of the van’s nose, a small
switch on the dashboard that shifts the vehicle
into electric-only mode and a 350-pound,
14-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack peeking
out from under the flat floor. And, of course,
Hybrid Sprinter lettering on its flanks.

The Sprinter drew a crowd to the lobby of the
Solaire apartment tower in Battery Park City,
chosen because it is the first green high-rise
residential building in the United States(with
its own wastewater plant and photovoltaic panels).

The Sprinter project is a team effort involving
DaimlerChrysler, the New York Power Authority and
the Electric Power Research Institute, among
others; representatives of each were on hand for
the introduction. “The plug-in hybrid is a good
application for fleets, and terrific for New York
City,” said Timothy S. Carey, president and chief
executive of the power authority, who drives an Escape Hybrid.

The officials stood under an awning and looked on
as I became the first journalist in the United States to drive the Sprinter.

I twisted the key, and was amazed at how quiet
the truck was. Unfortunately, it wasn't running.
To the consternation of almost everyone there,
this would-be paragon of New York fleet use had failed to start.

A German engineer quickly connected a laptop
computer to troubleshoot the failure, and
concluded that the van’s motor controller was not
functioning. Unfortunately, he couldn't fix the
problem quickly and the demonstration drive was postponed.

According to a DaimlerChrysler spokesman, Nick
Cappa, the car was running half an hour later.
But I didn't connect with it again until several
days later, in White Plains, where the power
authority has its headquarters. The facilities
also include a charging station, which takes six
to eight hours to replenish the Sprinter’s
lithium-ion batteries. The paddle charger fits
into a slot in the front fender and is pushed
downward to start the electricity flowing. The
charging system is designed with safety in mind:
the electrical contacts are not exposed until the
paddle is inserted into the car.

John Markowitz, a power authority engineer with
temporary custody of the hybrid Sprinter,
explained that this van, with a gasoline engine,
was destined for California, where regulators are not friendly to diesels.

That van’s lithium-ion batteries offer the same
amount of energy storage as the
nickel-metal-hydride packs in the other version,
but weigh half as much. But lithium-ion batteries
pose some cost and durability challenges: both
Apple Computer and Dell have recalled lithium-ion
laptop computer batteries because of an overheating hazard.

The Sprinter is relatively simple to drive, with
an automatic transmission that offers manual
shifting. It handles well for a large vehicle.
The driver can choose either hybrid or
electric-only mode, with the latter providing the
strongest initial acceleration.

The 2.3-liter gasoline engine in my test vehicle
revved to 5,000 r.p.m. without providing much
forward motion up hills, but the electric motor’s
abundance of low-speed torque pulled it away
smoothly — and with much less noise than a conventional van.

The engine engagement is not quite as seamless as
it is on the production Prius or Escape, but as
in those cars, the engine shuts off neatly at
stoplights. The alternate version, with a
2.7-liter turbocharged diesel engine, is likely to move out quicker.

In the first phase of testing, Sprinters will be
deployed in New York, Kansas City and Los
Angeles. The Kansas City and Los Angeles vans
will go into service at utility companies. The
Sprinter to undergo a three-year test in New York
will be a diesel version with
nickel-metal-hydride batteries. It will be used
by The New York Times to deliver newspapers from
a printing plant in College Point, Queens, to
routes in five boroughs, and to haul newspapers
to schools, said Mark E. Coleman, director of
distribution for The Times. He said the van was
likely to be delivered in February or March.

The Sprinter will have company. Claus C. Tritt,
senior manager for commercial vehicles, said
DaimlerChrysler would also field a second plug-in
hybrid on a revised platform, though he declined
to comment further. “It will have wheels,” he confided.

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

We spent two very rewarding days at the California Air Resources
Board's Zero Emission Vehicle Technology Review in Sacramento
September 26-27. A few days ago, I described the background for this
event at <http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/528.html>. I delivered
a shorter version of this text as accompanying commentary for our
eight-slide-presentation, which you can see at
<http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/symposium/presentations/presentations.htm>
or at <http://www.calcars.org/calcars-arb-zev-kramer.pdf>. We had
been hoping that all the illuminating presentations would be
available by now, but that hasn't happened. When they are available,
we will post additional comments at CalCars-News.

We're also posting a copy of this at our blog,
<http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power/early-drivers>, where you can comment.


The Experiences of Two PHEV Early Drivers.
By Felix Kramer, Founder, CalCars

I tip my hat to Toyota, EnergyCS, SMUD, Andy Frank, and the plug-in
advocates who never give up.

In Sept 2004, I came to the ARB hearing on the implementation of the
Pavley Bill. I my testimony
<http://www.calcars.org/CalCarsARBTestimonySept04.pdf>, I said "the
elephant in the room" is PHEVs, which could start saving CO2
emissions faster than any other vehicle type. Several commissioners
looked at each other, talked, and agreed it was necessary to re-visit
PHEVs. I'm glad that's happening now.

Slide 2 INTRODUCTION
My testimony reflects my experience as the world's first non-engineer
consumer owner of a PHEV and that of my colleague Ron Gremban, an
engineer and CalCars' Tech Lead, Ron is the owner/driver of the
world's first PHEV Prius.

In the fall of 2004, Ron Gremban led a team that for the first time
converted a hybrid production car (his 2004 Prius) into a PHEV. He
has since driven his lead-acid PHEV 17,000 miles, charging mostly at
his solar-panel-outfitted home. Then on April 7, 2006, I took
delivery from EnergyCS of a lithium-ion conversion of my 2004 Prius.
I have since driven 8,000 miles. Both cars are parked outside.

Many of the issues I address may be generalized to provide insight
into the impact of PHEVs as they begin to penetrate the population of
car drivers. I'll start with performance notes, followed by anecdotal
reports and issues.

Slide 3 PERFORMANCE
How things have changed! I used to dread a day filled with short
trips. Even on the low-emissions Prius, each time I'd have another
engine warm-up and much-reduced MPG. Now I love those local errands
-- they're mostly all-electric. In my first two days, I drove 130.71
miles on 1.102 gallons of gasoline. That's 118 MPG. These numbers
included an airport run with about 40 miles of 65 MPH highway driving.

Early on, I made a round-trip from the Peninsula to downtown San
Francisco. I went beyond the mixed-speed range of the PHEV Prius: 64
miles, including about 55 at highways speeds (North on flat Rte. 101,
back on hilly I-280). Bottom line: 81.4 MPG. That trip included 98
Watt-hours/mile or 6.2 kWhr out of the battery.

The slide shows a representative driving day with the "boosted" full
or partial electric range: 50.8 miles of mixed-speed driving, at an
average of 124.1 MPG plus 123 Wh/mile. The numbers speak for themselves.

We always try to say "100+ MPG (plus the cost of gasoline)." What
does that work out to added up? The answer is 76-83 MPG equivalent,
depending on assumptions (Sacramento Municipal Utility District or
Pacific Gas & Electric power rates, and $2.75 or $3/gallon for the
cost of gasoline).

These numbers demonstrate that 100+ MPG is possible with an
after-market conversion that suffers from severe limitations of any
conversion, including forced gasoline use above 34 MPH. An optimized,
from-the-ground-up PHEV from Toyota and other OEMs could do much better!

SLIDE 4 WHY DO WE PHEV DRIVERS PLUG IN?
As PHEV owners, plugging in is "optional," since we know we can reach
our destinations with gasoline. Our reasons to plug in have evolved:

1. Saving money.
2. Reducing CO2 and other emissions.
3. Reducing use of imported fuels (doing our bit for energy independence)
4. The pleasure of driving silently on local streets at low-speeds,
which accounts for more than half of our everyday driving. Ron's favorite)
5. The desire to avoid the generally negative experience of going to
a gas station.
6. The intangible "gadget/techie/boasting" factor of being able to
maintain high cumulative MPGs on a real-time display, and to achieve
extended intervals between fueling by using more electricity.

While the final point may appear to be frivolous, it's a real -- and
generally highly positive -- behavioral factor. It's the same dynamic
at work among many Prius drivers who report that their ever-present
"driving companion" (a feedback screen showing current and cumulative
MPG) has affected them. It's why you hear many Prius drivers say
they've changed to become safer, slower, cruise-control drivers. It's
why you see many hybrid owners driving at or below the posted maximum
speed on highways -- they've adjusted their driving behavior to the
message that each additional mile over 55 MPH causes an aerodynamic
hit of about 1 MPG. (In fact, if every new car came with a real-time
MPG indicator, that could probably accomplish a 10-15% reduction in
total vehicle fuel use faster than anything except getting people to
keep their tires inflated!)

Slide 5 HOW DO I MAKE MY PERSONAL CALCULUS ABOUT WHETHER TO PLUG IN?
Convenience is barely a factor. For home charging, it takes
approximately 9 seconds to plug in when leaving the car, less than 9
seconds to unplug on the way out. When I'm traveling, I'm generally
willing to explore the availability a 120-volt outlet in a hotel
parking lot -- and I carry a 100 foot extension cord. And of course,
the "dongle" -- when we brought my car to Washington, I showed that
and said, "I've brought my infrastructure with me," which got a big laugh.

Price signals are the main factor (with my PG&E E-7 whole-house
time-of-use meter).

Compared to this 7.6 cents, when the alternative is a 50 mile/gallon
battery-sustaining Prius, gasoline wins on cost against on-peak
charging until it reaches $3.80/gallon. Yet even at current
$2.75-$3.25/gallon, I occasionally charge on-peak anyway. Why?
Remember Slide 4? For reasons 2-6.

To the extent this "opportunistic charging" becomes a problem as more
drivers plug in, it can be addressed with additional price signals,
such as that included in the PG&E "Smart Meter" plan the CPUC
recently approved, which includes both an additional off-peak
discount and a "Critical Peak Pricing Plan" with a 60 cent/kWh
surcharge on hot summer days.

SLIDE 6 PHEVS AND EMERGENCY POWER
The combination of solar electricity and PHEVs is a huge
carbon-killer. In mid-September, I got a SunPower home rooftop
photovoltaic installation. Initially, mine will be like the typical
on-grid system: returning power to the grid in the day, recharging
the car mostly during off-peak, night-time hours.

But in the power-outage and earthquake-prone SF Bay Area, people are
highly interested when I explain that my system will later be
uniquely configured for what I call "Vehicle-To-Home" (which provides
a preview of to bi-directional Vehicle-to-Grid future). In extended
power outages I will be able to manually disconnect/island the PV
system from the grid and re-route the system's output. When the sun
is shining, PV will power a small part of the house (one line, with
refrigerator and lights) and charge the car. When PV power is
unavailable, the car's batteries will power that line.

During an extended power outage and cloudy days, once the battery is
depleted, the engine of the car (parked outside) can act as an
emergency power generator with far lower emissions than the external
generators available for these purposes. (Such emergency generators
must be run every few weeks even when not needed, so they are
maintenance headaches, and their fuel supplies are potential safety hazards.)

SLIDE 7 CALCARS' UPDATE ON THE EVOLUTION OF PUBLIC SUPPORT
this doesn't belong strictly in a technical session. Suffice it to
say that there's a growing interest and awareness, and many
indications of specific support for PHEV commercialization. You can
keep track of all this, and the continuing media attention, by
joining the 4,000 subscribers to CalCars-News.
At CalCars.org, you can also see:
http://www.calcars.org/carmakers.html -- the evolving views of auto-makers;
http://www.calcars.org/endorsements.html -- the high-level endorsements;
http://www.calcars.org/partners.html -- the growing coalition supporting PHEVs.

SLIDE 8 THE EVOLVING MARKET INTEREST AND PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE
  From 2001-2004, the main question I got was "What's a plug-in
hybrid?" In 2005, that first question became, "Good idea, but how are
you going to prove anyone wants them or will pay more?" In 2006, the
question, at the growing number of public events promoting PHEVs, and
every three weeks or so when I refuel, became, "How/when can I get
one?" And going forward, we're expecting to be involved in activities
that will help catalyze far more rapid adoption of this technology,
with evolution of the range extender fuel as well.

Thank you for your attention!

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

This articles raises some of the questions we recently discussed in
our blog, "Thinking About Lithium Batteries and Safety" at
<http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power/battery-safety>.

FORBES Magazine
OutFront
Remember The Pinto
Jonathan Fahey, 10.16.06
http://www.forbes.com/home/forbes/2006/1016/046a.html?_requestid=476

You've heard about lithium ion batteries catching fire in laptops.
Want one in your car?

If you are worried that a laptop powered by a dozen lithium ion cells
may burst into flames, how do you feel about cruising down the
highway at 70 miles per hour in a car powered by 6,000 of them?

Automakers are scrambling to get lithium ion batteries into hybrid
vehicles, and they are hoping these batteries will make plug-in
hybrids and all-electric vehicles possible soon, too. But talk about
a public relations problem. The series of laptop computer fires that
led Dell  and Apple to recall 5.9 million Sony-made battery packs
this summer were sparked by those same lithium ion batteries. "Yeah,
there's that little thing called safety," says David Hermance,
executive engineer for Toyotas Advanced Technology Vehicles.

Hybrid vehicles like Toyota's Prius, which are propelled by both
gasoline and electric motors, now use nickel metal hydride batteries
to store electricity. But Toyota and other automakers like lithium
ion because they can get at least twice the horsepower per pound from
the battery. And nickel's price has grown from $2 a pound to $13 over
the past five years, making expensive hybrid vehicles more so.
Problem is, lithium ion batteries are inherently unstable, so safety
systems have to be built in to prevent the batteries from getting too
hot from, say, overcharging.

Happily for Toyota, the batteries in hybrid vehicles are never fully
charged. They capture energy during braking and release it during
acceleration, all within a range from 75% charged to 45% charged.
Johnson Controls, the big auto supplier, says coming lithium ion
batteries will also have better safety systems. "Our thermal-
management systems are orders of magnitude more sophisticated than
what they use in laptops," says Alan Mumby, who runs the company's
battery program.

But in vehicles that run for long periods on electricity only, like
plug-in hybrids and all-electrics, engineers need to fully charge
batteries to maximize driving range, the drawback to electric
vehicles. A handful of companies, like A123 Systems and Valence
Technology, are rushing to come up with safe lithium ion batteries
specifically engineered for use in these vehicles. The big automakers
won't be selling plug-in hybrids or all-electric vehicles soon, but
tinkerer EnergyCS is developing a kit it hopes to sell for $12,000 or
so that will replace the nickel metal hydride battery in Priuses with
a plug-in lithium ion pack.

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

Last Thursday, after the three-day California Air Resources Board ZEV
Technology hearings, at an ARB meeting,  Board Member Ronald O.
Loveridge called for a statewide PHEV initiative. We have been told
his proposal was followed by positive statements about PHEVs from
Members Barbara Riordan and Dorene D'Adamo (we don't have a
transcript), and a comment by Board Chairman Sawyer, "It is clear
from [yesterday's] ZEV Symposium that battery technology is advancing."

The ARB has 11 members; Riverside Mayor Ronald O. Loveridge was
appointed to the  in 2004: his bio is at
<http://www.arb.ca.gov/board/bio/loveridge.htm>. Following is the
text of the proposal he announced at the "Public Hearing to Consider
Technical Status and Proposed Revisions to Malfunction and Diagnostic
System Requirements and Associated Enforcement Provisions for
Passenger Cars, Light-Duty Trucks, and Medium-Duty Vehicles and
Engines On-Board Diagnostic (OBD II) and Emission Warranty Regulation."

"PLUG-IN CALIFORNIA" INITIATIVE

Mayor Ronald Loveridge
CARB Board Meeting, September 28, 2006

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are an exciting emerging technology
because they offer the potential for zero-emission miles, reduced
greenhouse gas emissions, and improved energy diversity.

There has been tremendous support for Plug-in hybrids recently:

* Three major automakers (GM, Toyota, and DaimlerChrysler) are
actively pursuing the commercialization of plug-in hybrid electric technology.
* President Bush has directed specific activities to speed up plug-in
hybrid research.
* Austin Energy Plug-in Partners National Campaign is gaining more
and more participants and national attention.
* The State of New York has announced a $10 million program to
convert all state vehicles to plug-ins; and
* The South Coast AQMD has hosted two meetings, one on June 22 to
educate our local governments and utilities, and the second on July
12 to get expert technical input on the technical hurdles still before us.


All of these activities have drawn considerable interest and media
attention.  It is clear that people want these vehicles.  But to
really drive this technology and the battery improvements that are
required, we need a concerted effort rather than these small pockets
of activity.  And I suggest that this effort be at the state-level so
we can put the weight of all the state agencies behind it.

I would like to request that CARB staff work with the appropriate
stakeholders, including the Governor's Office, state legislature,
auto manufacturers, battery technology entities, state agencies such
as the CPUC, CEC, and DGS [California Public Utilities Commission,
California Energy Commission, Department of General Services],
Plug-in Partners, the electric utilities, environmental groups, and
the CAPCOA [California Air Pollution Control Officers Association]
members to establish a "Plug-in California" Initiative that will do
the following.

1. Establish a state commitment to purchase plug-in hybrid electric
vehicles when they are commercially available for all of the state
agencies fleets.

2. Establish reduced electric rates to charge these vehicles.

3. Establish incentive mechanisms for the automobiles manufacturers
by providing either additional ZEV credits or reduced greenhouse gas
credits for the number of plug-in hybrids they produce.

4. Provide consumer incentives to buydown the vehicle's initial
higher cost as well as giving HOV lane access to high fuel economy
and higher electric range plug-ins.

5. Establish a favorable environment for plug-in hybrid associated
businesses here in California; this should include battery technology
companies as well as small volume vehicle manufacturers.

6. Dedicate at lest $5 million of the $25 million CARB received
through AB 1811 toward the Research, Development, and Demonstration
of plug-in hybrids, and leverage these funds to the extent possible
with the other activities being conducted by the U.S. Department of
Energy, the automobile manufacturers, battery technology firms,
Plug-in Partners, and the South Coast AQMD.



--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
               http://www.bettah.org
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

Toyota's David Hermance concluded his presentation about the
company's position on electric vehicles and hybrids by speaking about
plug-in hybrids September 26 at the ARB ZEVTechnology Symposium.
(We'll have more comments on this as soon as the ARB puts up the
presentations from the event.)

Outside of the media relations department, Hermance has been Toyota's
leading spokesperson on PHEVs. He has been thinking about PHEVs for
years, and was involved in the early meetings of the Hybrid Vehicle
Working Group that led to the pioneering reports on PHEVs produced in
2001-2002 by a partnership between automakers, Department of Energy
National Labs, the Electric Power Research Institute and California
electric utilities (see <http://www.calcars.org/resources.html>.

Below is the full text of his two minutes on PHEVs (with indications
of _emphasis_), followed by his bio. As we've often noted, Toyota's
statements on PHEVs continue to evolve -- and not always in a
consistent direction, as you can see at the CalCars page, "How
Car-Makers are Responding to the Plug-In Hybrid Opportunity"
<http://www.calcars.org/carmakers.html>.

"Toyota Activities," September 26, 2006.

One last topic, plug-in hybrids. As a long-term vision, plug-in
hybrids are _really_ appealing in terms of energy diversity.
Depending upon the grid mix and the manufacturing efficiency of the
elements of the system, they may offer reduced lifecycle CO2 in
addition to reduced fuel consumption.

To reach the vision requires a breakthrough in battery technology
...for capacity, energy storage, durability and cost.

With today's best technologies, plug-ins are not _commercially_ viable.

At a DOE workshop in May, this is my summary; their summary is not
published yet; I welcome comments on my take from their meeting.

* The technical merit of plug-ins is reduced oil consumption and
transportation energy diversity.
* Batteries are the key issue.
* Reduced fuel consumption trumps all-electric range. If you require
a vehicle to have all-electric range, it requires a different design
and will delay the introduction, mitigating the potential benefit.
* And V2G [Vehicle to Grid], while it's an interesting concept and a
future possibility, is not ready for prime-time at this point in time.

We support those conclusions.
Just one more slide, I'm almost done, I promise.

It requires much more battery on board, a minimum of four times the
battery and sometimes as much as eight or 10 times, depending on how
much you're trying to do. That has mass, volume and cost impact.

The energy storage system,, the battery becomes much more like a
consumer electronic product than today's hybrids, so the duty cycle
is much more severe for the battery. A battery that lives well in
today's hybrid application will not _necessarily_ live well in this
application. Typically, the range of state of charge is 100% to about
20%, which is much more stressful to the battery, and durability
becomes a real issue, and if you don't have a life-of-vehicle
battery, that has major implications on lifecycle cost of the vehicle
technology. And that's it.

Here's his biography from the ARB event:
David W. Hermance is Executive Engineer for Advanced Technology
Vehicles at Toyota Technical Center (TTC), located in Gardena,
California. TTC, Toyota's North American R&D center, is a division of
Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing, North America, Inc. (TEMA).
Mr. Hermance is responsible for advanced technology vehicle
communication for the North American market and advanced technology
vehicle emission regulatory activities in California.

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
               http://www.bettah.org
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

'This extended coverage in a national news weekly gives an excellent
up-to-the-minute description of the status of PHEVs. See the URL or
print version (should be on news-stands today) for an entertaining
photo (CAPTION: Felix Kramer's Prius plugs into a 120-volt household outlet.)

One clarification: I had not intended to be quoted describing the NYS
program as a stunt! It's a very serious effort that has already
helped stimulate the market. But I was talking about conversions as a
strategy to increase the likelihood that car-makers will build PHEVs.

A Plug For Hybrids
100-mpg prototypes are on the road. Needed: safe, cheap batteries
By Marianne Lavelle
<http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/061001/9hybrid.htm>
Posted Sunday, October 1, 2006
This story appears in the October 9, 2006 print edition of U.S. News
& World Report.

When Andy Frank first tried to demonstrate how electricity could help
a car get 100 miles per gallon of gasoline, he resorted to the only
big power source he could find, the lead acid battery from a
Caterpillar tractor. But the farm vehicle-to-auto transplant didn't
work, and the young professor concluded the battery technology of
1972 wasn't up to the job. Still, he didn't give up. "This is
fundamental engineering," he says. "If you do the physics and
calculations, and have the knowledge of how cars work, you can show
on paper it's possible."

Thirty-four years later, Frank's dream, known by its cadre of
advocates as the "plug-in hybrid electric vehicle," is tantalizingly
close to reality. DaimlerChrysler has research vehicles on the road,
Toyota this summer became the first car company to announce it was
working on a commercial PHEV, and the other automakers-while not
making commitments-are no longer scoffing. Big money also is taking
notice, with legendary venture capitalist John Doerr calling plug-ins
"a really big deal" and the philanthropic arm of Google apparently
poised to back research.

Like the Toyota Prius, the new hybrids would draw power from either
the electric battery or the gasoline engine. But they would have
bigger, more powerful batteries-and a cord that would plug into a
normal 120-volt household outlet. They would be able to travel long
distances, perhaps 20 to 40 miles, using little or no gasoline. Since
the vast majority of Americans drive fewer than 40 miles per day, the
PHEV could render the daily commute gas free. And the driver would
never be stranded without a charge. PHEVs are "the most immediate and
practical alternative to petroleum and represent a bridge technology
to a sustainable transportation future," says Kateri Callahan,
president of the Alliance to Save Energy, a coalition of
environmental and business groups.

That's not to say there aren't major stumbling blocks, namely the
batteries. Automakers say no one yet has made an energy storage
device strong, safe, and cheap enough to install in a mass-market
auto. However, PHEV advocates argue that exactly what is needed to
drive electric battery technology forward is a bold decision to put
such vehicles into demonstration fleets. "The research essentially
has been done," says Frank, who leads the hybrid electric vehicle
group at the University of California-Davis-a project he calls Team
Fate, after the driven professor in the 1965 film The Great Race.
"What we need is the development-putting it into high-volume production."

To prove demand exists, a group called Plug-in Partners, led by the
city of Austin and its power company, Austin Energy, has organized
local governments and businesses to pledge to buy hundreds of PHEV
vehicles-even at a bloated early-adopter price-if carmakers would
only build them.

Then there are the activist tinkerers, who strip the batteries of
their current hybrids and replace them with perfectly viable-albeit
expensive-big plug-in batteries. EVWorld.com recently told readers
the switch can be done "if you have significant skills in
electromechanical assembly and a cavalier attitude toward your Prius
warranty." At least a dozen home-baked plug-ins journey U.S. roads
today, achieving the golden century mark in gas mileage, their owners
say. With the help of Monrovia, Calif., research firm EnergyCS, Felix
Kramer, founder of the California Cars Initiative, took to the road
with his prototype in April. On one recent stretch, he drove 949.75
miles on 9.36 gallons of gasoline. That's 101.5 miles per gallon.
(New York Gov. George Pataki is so enthusiastic he has allocated $10
million to convert 600 Priuses already in the state fleet to
plug-ins.) "It's just a stunt," Kramer concedes. "For us, conversions
are entirely a strategy to increase interest, to encourage carmakers
to do what they do best with the best technology."

Perhaps understandably, electric power companies have emerged as
strong plug-in promoters, with Pacific Gas & Electric even including
fliers in September bills asking its 5.1 million customers to
petition automakers to speed development. Utilities obviously would
sell more electricity if people plugged in to drive. But it would
also allow them to make use of their enormous stores of off-peak
capacity. Industry studies say if millions of plug-ins took to the
road tomorrow, no new power plants would be needed. A plug-in would
draw energy equivalent to that of an electric space heater. While the
consumer would pay more for electricity, it would be more than offset
by the savings for gasoline, even if pump prices dropped far below
those of today. At today's prices, a driver would pay 94 cents to the
power company to drive 30 miles on plug-in power. To drive the same
distance in the average U.S. car would cost $2.58 at the pump. But
automakers are not convinced that 64 percent savings in fuel costs
will offset the initial cost of the battery. Kramer's conversion cost
$12,000, in addition to the $21,000 cost of the original Prius. He
maintains that the battery cost could be driven down to $3,000 if it
were mass produced. But in recent congressional testimony, Honda's
environmental analysis manager, John German, estimated that the fuel
savings over the life of the vehicle would be only $3,000. "There is
no business case unless fuel prices rise to substantially more than
$3 per gallon, fuel shortages occur, plug-in hybrids are heavily
subsidized, or there is a breakthrough in energy storage," he said.

Burning issue. Big batteries add weight, decreasing performance. Most
experts, both inside and outside the auto industry, agree that
carmakers will turn away from the nickel metal hydride batteries now
in all hybrids to lighter, more powerful lithium ion batteries-the
kind that have become ubiquitous in consumer products like
cellphones, iPods, and laptops. Of course, lithium ion batteries made
news in recent weeks when the malfunctioning units in some laptops
erupted into flames, resulting in the largest consumer electronic
recall in history. PHEV advocates, noting that cars already tote an
explosive substance-gasoline-insist safety issues can be addressed.
Kramer's converted hybrid uses lithium ion batteries with a phosphate
additive to quell overheating.

But Toyota executive engineer David Hermance says the bar is high for
automakers. "I guarantee the battery's not ready," he says. "We won't
bring a product to market unless it meets our internal durability and
reliability tests." That's why Toyota has given no timeline on
introduction of a plug-in hybrid. "It's generally regarded as
inevitable that we will get a better battery," he says. "Nobody knows
just when."

Plug-in activists are looking outside the auto industry for help.
Especially encouraging was the move by Silicon Valley venture capital
firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers to double its commitment to
green technology investments to $200 million over the next two years.
And the plug-in world is abuzz with rumors that Google.org, the
for-profit philanthropic arm of Google, is poised to help, though the
company will say little.

Despite the challenges of bringing plug-ins to market, energy experts
say the concept has advantages over almost any other alternative now
contemplated, including using hydrogen as a fuel. Andy Frank,
meanwhile, continues to plug away."The difficulty is convincing the
automotive industry to transition from where we are today, with the
products in use today, to this new utopia, without having to
introduce additional infrastructure," he says. "In our case, the
infrastructure is the plug in the wall and the gas station."


--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

The September 20 History Channel show on "Renewable Energy" included
four good minutes on CalCars and PHEVs, including video they filmed
plus clips from our Washington trip and the Maker Faire, plus
comments by UC Prof. Daniel Kammen.

   We're trying out a new video service at CalCars.org. It's a beta
version of software from Click.TV <http://www.click.tv>, which lets
anyone write and attach comments to specific points in a video. These
comments are then searchable and can serve as impromptu navigation
for the video -- allowing you to jump immediately to various spots in the clip.

We invite you to make your own comment contributions, should you have
them, to the Modern Marvels excerpt at
<http://www.calcars.org/audio-video/modernmarvels-20sep06.html>.
We've gone ahead and annotated a sample track with some additional
information. While you're at it, you can see our BETTAH animation and
sample about 50 other video/audio clips at
<http://www.calcars.org/audio-video.html>.

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --
        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...
       Founder  California Cars Initiative
              http://www.calcars.org
        http://www.calcars.org/news-index.html
      http://www.hybridcars.com/blogs/power
               http://www.bettah.org
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --